PreprintShort NoteVersion 2Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person
Version 1
: Received: 4 March 2020 / Approved: 5 March 2020 / Online: 5 March 2020 (02:58:51 CET)
Version 2
: Received: 11 March 2020 / Approved: 12 March 2020 / Online: 12 March 2020 (05:04:52 CET)
Version 3
: Received: 25 March 2020 / Approved: 27 March 2020 / Online: 27 March 2020 (02:22:11 CET)
Version 4
: Received: 16 April 2020 / Approved: 19 April 2020 / Online: 19 April 2020 (08:15:10 CEST)
How to cite:
Olsson, S.; Zhang, J. The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person. Preprints2020, 2020030077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0077.v2
Olsson, S.; Zhang, J. The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person. Preprints 2020, 2020030077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0077.v2
Olsson, S.; Zhang, J. The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person. Preprints2020, 2020030077. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0077.v2
APA Style
Olsson, S., & Zhang, J. (2020). The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0077.v2
Chicago/Turabian Style
Olsson, S. and Jing Zhang. 2020 "The Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic Curves Indicate Initial Point Spread in China with Log-Normal Distribution of New Cases Per Day with a Predictable Last Date of the Outbreak Version 2: Evaluation of Previous Prediction and Testing the Method for S Korea and the Use of the Method by an Unexperienced Person" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0077.v2
Abstract
During an epidemic outbreak it is useful for planners and responsible authorities to be able to plan ahead to estimate when an outbreak of an epidemic is likely to ease and when the last case can be predicted in their area of responsibility. Theoretically this could be done for a point source epidemic using epidemic curve forecasting. The extensive data now coming out of China makes it possible to test if this can be done using MS Excel a standard spreadsheet program available to most offices. The available data is divided up for whole China and the different provinces. This and the high number of cases makes the analysis possible. Data for new confirmed infections for Hubei, Hubei outside Wuhan, China excluding Hubei as well as Zhejiang and Fujian provinces all follow a log-normal distribution that can be used to make a rough estimate for the date of the last new confirmed cases in respective areas. In this continuation work 9 additional days were added for the Chinese data to evaluate the previous predictions. We also tested the feasibility for a non-specialist to make similar predictions using additional data from S Korea now available. The extra data now available from China follows the previous predicted trend supporting the usefulness of this simple technique.
Keywords
epidemiology; COVID-19
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Virology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received:
12 March 2020
Commenter:
Stefan Olsson
Commenter's Conflict of Interests:
Author
Comment:
This is a follow up version where the earlier predictions have been tested for the new data that has become available. In the previous version I claimed that the prediction could be done by a non-specialist using other data. I have now tested that by asking a previous master student living in another city to test the feasibility of using the method on S Korea data for the COVID19 outbreak. Thus this version should be seen as a test of the claims made in the previous version. Since the tester of the method has contributed with analysis work she is now added as co-author.
Commenter: Stefan Olsson
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author