Estimating the Fraction of Unreported Infections in Epidemics with a Known Epicenter: an Application to COVID-19

Ali Hortacsu, Jiarui Liu and Timothy Schwieg

No 27028, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We develop an analytically tractable method to estimate the fraction of unreported infections in epidemics with a known epicenter and estimate the number of unreported COVID-19 infections in the US during the first half of March 2020. Our method utilizes the covariation in initial reported infections across US regions and the number of travelers to these regions from the epicenter, along with the results of an early randomized testing study in Iceland. Using our estimates of the number of unreported infections, which are substantially larger than the number of reported infections, we also provide estimates for the infection fatality rate using data on reported COVID-19 fatalities from U.S. counties.

JEL-codes: C00 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
Note: EH IO TWP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Published as Ali Hortaçsu & Jiarui Liu & Timothy Schwieg, 2020. "Estimating the fraction of unreported infections in epidemics with a known epicenter: An application to COVID-19," Journal of Econometrics, .

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27028.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Estimating the fraction of unreported infections in epidemics with a known epicenter: An application to COVID-19 (2021)
Working Paper: Estimating the Fraction of Unreported Infections in Epidemics with a Known Epicenter: an Application to COVID-19 (2020)
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:nbr:nberwo:27028

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().