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[Preprint]. 2020 Mar 20:2020.02.19.20025452.
doi: 10.1101/2020.02.19.20025452.

The serial interval of COVID-19 from publicly reported confirmed cases

Affiliations

The serial interval of COVID-19 from publicly reported confirmed cases

Zhanwei Du et al. medRxiv. .

Update in

Abstract

We estimate the distribution of serial intervals for 468 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in 93 Chinese cities by February 8, 2020. The mean and standard deviation are 3.96 (95% CI 3.53-4.39) and 4.75 (95% CI 4.46-5.07) days, respectively, with 12.6% of reports indicating pre-symptomatic transmission.

Keywords: Wuhan; coronavirus; epidemiology; serial interval.

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Figures

Figure.
Figure.. Estimated serial interval distribution for COVID-19 based on 468 reported transmission events in China between January 21, 2020 and February 8, 2020.
Bars indicate the number of infection events with specified serial interval and blue lines indicate fitted normal distributions for (a) all infection events (N = 468) reported across 93 cities of mainland China by February 8, 2020 and (b) the subset infection events (N = 122) in which both the infector and infectee were infected in the reporting city (i.e., the index case was not an importation from another city). Negative serial intervals (left of the vertical dotted lines) suggest the possibility of COVID-2019 transmission from asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases.

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