Abstract
Mexico has experienced one of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world. A delayed implementation of social distancing interventions in late March 2020 and a phased reopening of the country in June 2020 has facilitated sustained disease transmission in the region. In this study we systematically generate and compare 30-day ahead forecasts using previously validated growth models based on mortality trends from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for Mexico and Mexico City in near real-time. Moreover, we estimate reproduction numbers for SARS-CoV-2 based on the methods that rely on genomic data as well as case incidence data. Subsequently, functional data analysis techniques are utilized to analyze the shapes of COVID-19 growth rate curves at the state level to characterize the spatiotemporal transmission patterns of SARS-CoV-2. The early estimates of the reproduction number for Mexico were estimated between Rt ~1.1–1.3 from the genomic and case incidence data. Moreover, the mean estimate of Rt has fluctuated around ~1.0 from late July till end of September 2020. The spatial analysis characterizes the state-level dynamics of COVID-19 into four groups with distinct epidemic trajectories based on epidemic growth rates. Our results show that the sequential mortality forecasts from the GLM and Richards model predict a downward trend in the number of deaths for all thirteen forecast periods for Mexico and Mexico City. However, the sub-epidemic and IHME models perform better predicting a more realistic stable trajectory of COVID-19 mortality trends for the last three forecast periods (09/21-10/21, 09/28-10/27, 09/28-10/27) for Mexico and Mexico City. Our findings indicate that phenomenological models are useful tools for short-term epidemic forecasting albeit forecasts need to be interpreted with caution given the dynamic implementation and lifting of social distancing measures.
Highlights
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the most important global health challenge since the 1918 influenza pandemic that was caused by an A/H1N1 virus of avian origin [1, 2]
The mobility trend for Mexico (Fig 1, lower panel) shows that the human mobility tracked in the form of walking, driving and public transportation declined from the end of March to the beginning of June, corresponding to the implementation of social distancing interventions and the Jornada Nacional de Sana Distancia that was put in place between March 23-May 30, 2020 enforcing the suspension of non-essential activities in public, private and social sectors [88]
We report initial sub-exponential growth dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico and Mexico City with the deceleration of growth parameter, p, estimated between 0.6–0.8
Summary
The ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is the most important global health challenge since the 1918 influenza pandemic that was caused by an A/H1N1 virus of avian origin [1, 2]. The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic calls for scientists, health professionals, and policymakers to collaboratively address the challenges posed by this lethal infectious disease. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exerted significant morbidity and an excruciating mortality burden with more than 79.2 million cases and 1.7 million deaths reported worldwide as of December 29, 2020 [5]. 27 countries globally including 9 countries in the Americas have reported more than 10,000 deaths attributable to SARS-CoV-2 as of December 29, 2020, despite the implementation of social distancing policies to limit the death toll [6]. A total of 774 deaths were reported during the 2003 SARS multi-country epidemic and 858 deaths were reported during the 2012 MERS epidemic in Saudi Arabia [7, 8]
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