Drivers of epidemic dynamics in real time from daily digital COVID-19 measurements

Understanding the drivers of respiratory pathogen spread is challenging, particularly in a timely manner during an ongoing epidemic. In this work, we present insights that we obtained using daily data from the National Health Service COVID-19 app for England and Wales and that we shared with health...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2024-08, Vol.385 (6710), p.eadm8103
Main Authors: Kendall, Michelle, Ferretti, Luca, Wymant, Chris, Tsallis, Daphne, Petrie, James, Di Francia, Andrea, Di Lauro, Francesco, Abeler-Dörner, Lucie, Manley, Harrison, Panovska-Griffiths, Jasmina, Ledda, Alice, Didelot, Xavier, Fraser, Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Availability
Basic Reproduction Number
Christmas
Contact
Contact tracing
Contact Tracing - methods
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
COVID-19 - transmission
Data analysis
Data transmission
Decision making
Disease control
Disease transmission
England - epidemiology
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Estimates
Exposure
Firing pattern
Health risks
Health services
Holidays
Humans
Infections
Mobile Applications
Pandemics
Pathogens
Probability
Public health
Real time
Respiratory diseases
Risk
SARS-CoV-2 - isolation & purification
Seasonal variations
Shopping
Soccer
Time measurement
Tournaments & championships
Trajectory control
Vaccination
Viral diseases
Wales - epidemiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Understanding the drivers of respiratory pathogen spread is challenging, particularly in a timely manner during an ongoing epidemic. In this work, we present insights that we obtained using daily data from the National Health Service COVID-19 app for England and Wales and that we shared with health authorities in almost real time. Our indicator of the reproduction number ( ) was available days earlier than other estimates, with an innovative capability to decompose ( ) into contact rates and probabilities of infection. When Omicron arrived, the main epidemic driver switched from contacts to transmissibility. We separated contacts and transmissions by day of exposure and setting and found pronounced variability over days of the week and during Christmas holidays and events. For example, during the Euro football tournament in 2021, days with England matches showed sharp spikes in exposures and transmissibility. Digital contact-tracing technologies can help control epidemics not only by directly preventing transmissions but also by enabling rapid analysis at scale and with unprecedented resolution.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.adm8103