Research
[EClinicalMedicine] Using the COVID-19 to influenza ratio to estimate early pandemic spread in Wuhan, China and Seattle, US
EClinicalMedicine, 12 August 2020
Zhanwei Du, Emily Javan, Ciara Nugent, Benjamin J. Cowling, Lauren Ancel Meyers
Highlights:
- In Wuhan, there were an estimated 1386 [95% CrI: 420-3793] symptomatic cases over 30 of COVID-19 between December 30, 2019 and January 12, 2020. In Seattle, we estimate that 2268 [95% CrI: 498, 6069] children under 18 and 4367 [95% CrI: 2776, 6526] adults were symptomatically infected between February 24 and March 9, 2020.
- the initial pandemic wave in Wuhan likely originated with a single infected case who developed symptoms sometime between October 26 and December 13, 2019; in Seattle, the seeding likely occurred between December 25, 2019 and January 15, 2020.
- The spread of COVID-19 in Wuhan and Seattle was far more extensive than initially reported.
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