Pandemic/Statistics/Epidemiological Data
SARS-C0V-2 Pandemic Epidemiological Data
India, March 2020
COVID-19, an infectious respiratory illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome–corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has now spread to multiple countries including India. The pace at which the disease spread in the last 4 months, since it was first recognized from China, is unprecedented. This review of the epidemiology of COVID-19 summarizes the burden of infection, transmission dynamics, and other related epidemiological features. While countries such as China, Italy, and the United States have particularly high-rates of infection, the disease is gradually spreading in India as well, threatening the health and economy of the country. Transmission in asymptomatic cases, early symptomatic phase, as well as limited access to testing in different settings are factors that have led to the rapid spread of infection. A large case series from China revealed that 81% of cases had mild symptoms, 14% had severe disease, and 5% were afflicted with critical illness. While the mortality in China was reported as 2.3%, Italy, with a high-proportion of elderly, reported a case fatality report of 7.2% due to higher infection and mortality rates among the elderly. Being a highly infectious disease, with a basic reproduction number between 2 to 3, COVID-19 is affecting a large number of healthcare workers, as evidenced by the fact that a sizeable portion of reported infections in the US included healthcare workers. Delivering health care for both COVID-19 affected individuals, as well those with other acute and chronic conditions, with limited access to healthcare facilities and services, are challenges for the health systems in low- and middle-income countries, which require immediate measures for health system strengthening across sectors.
Source: Epidemiology of COVID-19 Abstract[1]
Contents
Freely Available Data
The Abstract from the paper Epidemiology of COVID-19 by Dhar Chowdhury and Anu Mary Oommen[1] was published on 11 March 2020, relatively early in timeline of the pandemic. Even then it can be seen that the impact of the coronavirus on different populations varied in severity and by age group. During that year journalists, politicians, city mayors and TV hosts all took an impromptu course in epidemiology with the consequence that statistics were thrown around in conjunction with dramatic video and the media spin induced an unprecedented level of public fear and anxiety. Everyone needed quality information but mostly the media personalities quoted statistics. Statistics are derived from data. The number of recorded cases on a given day is data. The number of people who died, their death attributed to the virus, is also data. But people rarely died on the same day they were tested for the disease, so those two numbers do not lead to a case/fatality ratio. Similarly, the total number of people who died since the beginning of the pandemic, while shocking in scale, needs to be compared with the number of people in a population. And the risk of death for an individual may depend on factors such as their age and underlying health conditions such as diabetes or obesity and others. Information is created from data by analysis and presentation in a meaningful way. The sources below are helpful as data sources, and in the future there may be valuable information about the pandemic gleaned from all the data. But the present situation is dynamic. Graphs show peaks and troughs, often called waves, but cannot show which variant is prevalent at that time or a correlation, if any, with vaccination rates. A case/fatality ratio for the delta variant will be different from the original alpha variant and in a country like the UK with a high vaccination rate the apparent case/fatality ratio will be low because of the efficacy of the vaccines. What we should be grateful for though is that the data provided by the sites below actually exists, and acknowledge the efforts made to provide it free of charge to a global community.
Grant
July 2021
Epidemiological Data Sources
World Health Organisation - Situation Reports
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
This page is titled Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Weekly Epidemiological Update and Weekly Operational Update and links to current and past Situation Reports. A page description follows:-
The Weekly Epidemiological Update provides an overview of the global, regional and country-level COVID-19 cases and deaths, highlighting key data and trends; as well as other pertinent epidemiological information concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 Weekly Operational Update reports on WHO and partners’ actions in response to the pandemic.The first Situation Report on the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), as it was described initially, was issued on 21 January, 2020. This report included a summary of event highlights from 31 December 2019 to 20 January 2020.
Worldometer COVID Live Update
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Weekly Trends, Graphs, Statistics by Country, and News
For past statistics, navigate to the Internet Archive called The Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org and enter the URL for Worldometers Coronavirus page https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Select a date from the displayed calendar to view statistics known at that time.Our World in Data
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
This comprehensive website presents coronavirus pandemic data is a variety of views and also provides an explanation of the the terminology used.
The coronavirus statistics is just part of a larger set of data on a range of topics indexed from the home page at https://ourworldindata.org/.
For past statistics, navigate to the Internet Archive called The Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org and enter the URL for the Our World in Data Coronavirus page https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus. Select a date from the displayed calendar to view statistics known at that time.91-DIVOC
http://www.91-divoc.com
This website is contains interactive visualizations made during the Covid-19 pandemic by Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, Teaching Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Additional Notes
There are a few issues with raw data in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the sources, like Worldometer, have notes which explain reasons for adjustments made to the data. Some other issues are widely known and mentioned here:-
- There have been different definitions of a coronavirus death. If a person died after a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, did they die of Covid-19 or with Covid-19?
- In some countries so many deaths have occurred that many were not officially recorded.
- Case numbers are derived from tests and there has been discussion about the accuracy of PCR tests. Test results also depend on the number of cycles; inappropriately high cycle rates may lead to 'false positive' results.
- Logic could also lead us to believe that there were more people who contracted the disease than those who were actually tested, particularly if people were asymptomatic or if they would incur a cost for the test.
- The number of cases at any time is less significant than the number of people sick enough to be hospitalised or so ill that they require additional oxygen (ventilators).
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dhar Chowdhury S, Oommen AM. Epidemiology of COVID-19. Journal of Digestive Endoscopy. 2020;11(1):3-7. doi:10.1055/s-0040-1712187
This paper is relatively short, easy to read, informative and effectively summarises what was known about SARS-CoV-2 at the time of publication in March 2020.
