TY - JOUR
T1 - The collective wisdom in the COVID-19 research
T2 - Comparison and synthesis of epidemiological parameter estimates in preprints and peer-reviewed articles
AU - Wang, Yuejiao
AU - Cao, Zhidong
AU - Zeng, Daniel Dajun
AU - Zhang, Qingpeng
AU - Luo, Tianyi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 72042018 , 91546112 , and 71621002 ] and the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation [grant number L192012 ].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - Objectives: We aimed to explore the collective wisdom of preprints related to COVID-19 by comparing and synthesizing them with results of peer-reviewed publications. Methods: PubMed, Google Scholar, medRxiv, bioRxiv, arXiv, and SSRN were searched for papers regarding the estimation of four epidemiological parameters of COVID-19: the basic reproduction number, incubation period, infectious period, and case-fatality-rate. Distributions of parameters and timeliness of preprints and peer-reviewed papers were compared. Four parameters in two groups were synthesized by bootstrapping, and their validities were evaluated by simulated cumulative cases of the susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered-dead-cumulative (SEIRDC) model. Results: A total of 106 papers were included for analysis. The distributions of four parameters in two literature groups were close, and the timeliness of preprints was better. Synthesized estimates of the basic reproduction number (3.18, 95% CI 2.85–3.53), incubation period (5.44 days, 95% CI 4.98–5.99), infectious period (6.25 days, 95% CI 5.09–7.51), and case-fatality-rate (4.51%, 95% CI 3.41%–6.29%) were obtained. Simulated cumulative cases of the SEIRDC model matched well with the onset cases in China. Conclusions: The validity of the COVID-19 parameter estimations of the preprints was on par with that of peer-reviewed publications, and synthesized results of literatures could reduce the uncertainty and be used for epidemic decision-making.
AB - Objectives: We aimed to explore the collective wisdom of preprints related to COVID-19 by comparing and synthesizing them with results of peer-reviewed publications. Methods: PubMed, Google Scholar, medRxiv, bioRxiv, arXiv, and SSRN were searched for papers regarding the estimation of four epidemiological parameters of COVID-19: the basic reproduction number, incubation period, infectious period, and case-fatality-rate. Distributions of parameters and timeliness of preprints and peer-reviewed papers were compared. Four parameters in two groups were synthesized by bootstrapping, and their validities were evaluated by simulated cumulative cases of the susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered-dead-cumulative (SEIRDC) model. Results: A total of 106 papers were included for analysis. The distributions of four parameters in two literature groups were close, and the timeliness of preprints was better. Synthesized estimates of the basic reproduction number (3.18, 95% CI 2.85–3.53), incubation period (5.44 days, 95% CI 4.98–5.99), infectious period (6.25 days, 95% CI 5.09–7.51), and case-fatality-rate (4.51%, 95% CI 3.41%–6.29%) were obtained. Simulated cumulative cases of the SEIRDC model matched well with the onset cases in China. Conclusions: The validity of the COVID-19 parameter estimations of the preprints was on par with that of peer-reviewed publications, and synthesized results of literatures could reduce the uncertainty and be used for epidemic decision-making.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Epidemiology
KW - Peer review
KW - Preprint
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.12.040
DO - 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.12.040
M3 - Article
C2 - 33352327
AN - SCOPUS:85100115228
VL - 104
SP - 1
EP - 6
JO - International Journal of Infectious Diseases
JF - International Journal of Infectious Diseases
SN - 1201-9712
ER -