The Acceleration Index as a Test-Controlled Reproduction Number: Application to COVID-19 in France

Christelle Baunez (), Mickael Degoulet (), Stéphane Luchini (), Matteo L. Pintus, Patrick Pintus and Miriam Teschl ()
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Christelle Baunez: INT - Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Mickael Degoulet: INT - Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Stéphane Luchini: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Matteo L. Pintus: AgroParisTech
Miriam Teschl: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: We show that the acceleration index, a novel indicator that measures acceleration and deceleration of viral spread (Baunez et al. 2020a,b), is essentially a test-controlled version of the reproduction number. As such it is a more accurate indicator to track the dynamics of an infectious disease outbreak in real time. We indicate a discrepancy between the acceleration index and the reproduction number, based on the infectivity and test rates and we provide a formal decomposition of this difference. When applied to French data for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our decomposition shows that the reproduction number consistently underestimates the resurgence of the pandemic since the summer of 2020, compared to the acceleration index which accounts for the time-varying volume of tests. Because the acceleration index aggregates all the relevant information and captures in real time the sizeable time variation featured by viral circulation, it is a sufficient statistic to track the pandemic's propagation.

Keywords: COVID-19; reproduction Number; lock-down; acceleration Index; real-time analysis; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12-02
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03079490v2
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Working Paper: The Acceleration Index as a Test-Controlled Reproduction Number: Application to COVID-19 in France (2020)
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