A New Framework and Software to Estimate Time-Varying Reproduction Numbers During Epidemics

The quantification of transmissibility during epidemics is essential to designing and adjusting public health responses. Transmissibility can be measured by the reproduction number R, the average number of secondary cases caused by an infected individual. Several methods have been proposed to estimate R over the course of an epidemic; however, they are usually difficult to implement for people without a strong background in statistical modeling. Here, we present a ready-to-use tool for estimating R from incidence time series, which is implemented in popular software including Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington). This tool produces novel, statistically robust analytical estimates of R…

• RS
  Royal Society
• IC
  Imperial College London
• MR
  Medical Research Council

  Awards: MR/K010174/1, G0800596
• NI
  National Institute of General Medical Sciences