Changing transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in China: a nationwide population-based piecewise mathematical modelling study

Jiawen Hou; Jie Hong; Boyun Ji; Bowen Dong; Yue Chen; Michael P Ward; Wei Tu; Zhen Jin; Jian Hu; Qing Su; Wenge Wang; Zheng Zhao; Shuang Xiao; Jiaqi Huang; Wei Lin; Zhijie Zhang

There are several limitations for this study. Firstly, individuals with no or only mild symptoms might not seek treatment, and therefore, not be included in the dataset, especially for epidemic stages 1 and 2. This reporting bias could result in underestimation for the number of cases as well as Ü´ . Secondly, we did not include epidemic data from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and foreign countries. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity would have been larger if these data were included. Finally, we used data from laboratory diagnosed cases, and therefore, the number of predicted cases after February 12 would be lower than the officially reported number of both clinically and laboratory diagnosed cases, when the revised reporting rule was implemented; unfortunately, it is not possible to differentiate the numbers of clinically-and laboratory-diagnosed cases. . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.