Estimating the basic reproduction number for COVID-19 in Western Europe

Isabella Locatelli, Bastien Trächsel and Valentin Rousson

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-9

Abstract: Objective: To estimate the basic reproduction number (R0) for COVID-19 in Western Europe. Methods: Data (official statistics) on the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 at the start of the outbreak (before any confinement rules were declared) were retrieved in the 15 largest countries in Western Europe, allowing us to estimate the exponential growth rate of the disease. The rate was then combined with estimates of the distribution of the generation interval as reconstructed from the literature. Results: Despite the possible unreliability of some official statistics about COVID-19, the spread of the disease appears to be remarkably similar in most European countries, allowing us to estimate an average R0 in Western Europe of 2.2 (95% CI: 1.9–2.6). Conclusions: The value of R0 for COVID-19 in Western Europe appears to be significantly lower than that in China. The proportion of immune persons in the European population required to stop the outbreak could thus be closer to 50% than to 70%.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248731 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 48731&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0248731

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248731

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().