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. 2024 Nov;29(45):2400696.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.45.2400696.

Setting thresholds to determine COVID-19 activity levels using the mean standard deviation (MSD) method, England, 2022-2024

Mary A Sinnathamby  1 , Tania Bourouphael  1 , Jacob Boateng  1 , Magali Collonnaz  1 , Catherine Quinot  1 , Nurin Abdul Aziz  1 , Suzanne Elgohari  1 , Rebecca E Green  1 , Gavin Dabrera  1 , Jamie Lopez-Bernal  1 , Alex Allen  1
Affiliations

Setting thresholds to determine COVID-19 activity levels using the mean standard deviation (MSD) method, England, 2022-2024

Mary A Sinnathamby et al. Euro Surveill. 2024 Nov.

Abstract

We developed a new activity level setting threshold method, the mean standard deviation (MSD) method to quantify COVID-19 activity levels. This has been validated against the moving epidemic method (MEM), which has been used for influenza for many years, and we observed very similar results. The MSD method can prove to be a tool to use for respiratory viruses with limited historical data or seasonality to quantify activity levels when other respiratory viruses are also circulating.

Keywords: COVID-19; epidemiology; influenza; thresholds.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proposed thresholds for monitoring of COVID-19 in the population
Figure 2
Figure 2
Data on COVID-19 surveillance with thresholds set by mean standard deviation method, England, week 27 2023–week 36 2024
Figure 3
Figure 3
Data on COVID-19 surveillance with thresholds set by the finalised defined mean standard deviation method, England, week 27 2023–week 36 2024
Figure 4
Figure 4
Validation of the moving epidemic method against a new mean standard deviation method using influenza data from severe acute respiratory infection surveillance (SARI-Watch) for hospital admissions, England, week 40 2023–week 20 2024
Figure 5
Figure 5
Validation of the moving epidemic method against a new mean standard deviation method using influenza data from severe acute respiratory infection surveillance (SARI-Watch) for intensive care unit or high dependency unit admissions, England, week 40 2023–week 20 2024
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