Estimating missing deaths in Delhi’s COVID-19 data

Chakravarty, Shoibal

doi:10.1101/2020.07.29.20164392

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This was done on the Open Epi ver3.0 software using the following formula- We assumed a sero-prevalence of 15%, which has been reported in urban regions of India during the same time period, relative precision of 20%, a design effect of 2.2 (calculated using a weak interclass correlation and a cluster size of 60), a finite population and a non-response rate of 20%. (12–14)This was rounded off to 1500 per city.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Findings from serological surveys (in August 2020) to assess the exposure of adult population to SARS Cov-2 infection in three cities of Odisha, India

Kshatri

Bhattacharya

Kanungo

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: There is always an uncertainty of epidemiological , serological infectivity and virulence of the emerging novel coronavirus. Antibody test can be used for assessing whether immunity has developed in the infected person after 5-7 days of illness and understand cumulative exposure levels to the infection, make inferences on the actual burden of infection, its geographical spread, effect on specific demographic/risk groups, gaps in testing and infection fatality rates. Objective- To estimate and compare the sero-prevalence, hidden prevalence and determine the demographic risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection among adults in three largest cities of Odisha, India. Methodology: This was a population based cross sectional serological survey carried out in August 2020 in the three largest cities of the state of Odisha. Sample size per city was estimated to be 1500 and participants were enrolled from the community using multi-stage random sampling from 25 clusters from each city. Data was collected using ODK based tools by household visits and 3-4 ml of blood samples were collected after informed consent. Samples were transported to testing lab where Serum was separated and tested for anti- SARS CoV-2 antibodies using automated CLIA platform. Statistical analysis was done using R-software packages. Results: A total of 4146 participants from the 3 cities of Bhubaneswar (BBS), Berhampur (BAM) and Rourkela (RKL) participated. A total of 5635 households were approached and the average non response rate in the community was 17.4%. The gender weighted seroprevalence across the three cities was 20.78% (95% CI: 19.56%-22.05%). Seroprevalence was highest in BAM at 31.14% (95% CI: 28.69-33.66%) followed by 24.59% (95% CI: 22.39-26.88%) in RKL and 5.24% (95% CI: 4.10-6.58%) in BBS. While females reported a higher seroprevalence (22.8%) as compared to males (18.8%), there was no significant difference in seroprevalence across age groups. A majority of the seropositive participants were asymptomatic (93.87%). Among those who reported symptoms, the most common symptom was fever (68.89%) followed by cough (46.06%) and myalgia (32.67%). The case to infection ratio on the date of serosurvey was 1: 6.6 in BBS, 1:61 in BAM and 1:29.8 in RKL. Conclusion: The study found a high seroprevalence against COVID-19 in urban Odisha as well as high numbers of asymptomatic infections.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Findings from serological surveys (in August 2020) to assess the exposure of adult population to SARS Cov-2 infection in three cities of Odisha, India

Kshatri

Bhattacharya

Kanungo

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While underreporting of deaths has also been a serious problem, death underreporting has been disproportionately smaller than case underreporting (Bhattacharyya et al, 2020;Chakravarty, 2020). Therefore any correction for the reporting bias will reveal a death rate much lower than the CFR.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating alternative hypotheses to explain the downward trend in the indices of the COVID-19 pandemic death rate

Shinde

Ranade

Watve³

2021

PeerJ

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Background In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, in the global data on the case fatality ratio (CFR) and other indices reflecting death rate, there is a consistent downward trend from mid-April to mid-November. The downward trend can be an illusion caused by biases and limitations of data or it could faithfully reflect a declining death rate. A variety of explanations for this trend are possible, but a systematic analysis of the testable predictions of the alternative hypotheses has not yet been attempted. Methodology We state six testable alternative hypotheses, analyze their testable predictions using public domain data and evaluate their relative contributions to the downward trend. Results We show that a decline in the death rate is real; changing age structure of the infected population and evolution of the virus towards reduced virulence are the most supported hypotheses and together contribute to major part of the trend. The testable predictions from other explanations including altered testing efficiency, time lag, improved treatment protocols and herd immunity are not consistently supported, or do not appear to make a major contribution to this trend although they may influence some other patterns of the epidemic. Conclusion The fatality of the infection showed a robust declining time trend between mid April to mid November. Changing age class of the infected and decreasing virulence of the pathogen were found to be the strongest contributors to the trend.

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“…While underreporting of deaths has also been a serious problem, death underreporting has been disproportionately smaller than case underreporting (Bhattacharyya et al, 2020;Chakravarty 2020). Therefore any correction for the reporting bias will reveal a death rate much lower than the CFR.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer Review #1 of "Evaluating alternative hypotheses to explain the downward trend in the indices of the COVID-19 pandemic death rate (v0.1)"

2021

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Estimating missing deaths in Delhi’s COVID-19 data

Cited by 7 publications

References 8 publications

Findings from serological surveys (in August 2020) to assess the exposure of adult population to SARS Cov-2 infection in three cities of Odisha, India

Findings from serological surveys (in August 2020) to assess the exposure of adult population to SARS Cov-2 infection in three cities of Odisha, India

Evaluating alternative hypotheses to explain the downward trend in the indices of the COVID-19 pandemic death rate

Peer Review #1 of "Evaluating alternative hypotheses to explain the downward trend in the indices of the COVID-19 pandemic death rate (v0.1)"

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