Sam Abbott, PhD
Estimating the effective reproduction number in real time - How can we mitigate data challenges?Tuesday 4 July, 19:00 – 20:00
Abstract: Have you ever attempted to estimate the effective reproduction number in real-time during an epidemic? If so, you'll know it's quite a challenging task. Despite the difficulties, it remains a popular summary measure due to its ability to provide insights into the current situation, generate meaningful short-term forecasts of key metrics, and facilitate secondary analysis such as estimating the impact of interventions. While most methods rely on relatively simple models, real-world data can complicate even these approaches. Once you have estimates verifying them or comparing them to estimates from other sources is another challenge. In this talk, I will explore the importance of speed and timing in useful effective reproduction number estimates. I will also signpost some of the challenges posed by real-world data and discuss strategies to overcome them. Finally, I will present a real-world application of some of these techniques and highlight additional resources, ideas, and areas in which I have blind spots as I do so.
About: Sam Abbott is an infectious disease researcher interested in real-time analysis, nowcasting, forecasting, semi-mechanistic modelling, and open-source tool development. Most recently he has been working on evaluating methods to estimate delay distributions in real-time. See his website for more.