Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 515-530 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Econometrics Journal |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Abstract
Assessing the infection fatality rate (IFR) of SARS-CoV-2 in a population is a controversial issue. Due to asymptomatic courses of COVID-19, many infections remain undetected. Reported case fatality rates are therefore poor estimates of the IFR. We propose a strategy to estimate the IFR that combines official data on cases and fatalities with data from seroepidemiological studies in infection hotspots. The application of the method yields an estimate of the IFR of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 in Germany during the first wave of the pandemic of 0.83% (95% CI: [0.69%; 0.98%]), notably higher than the estimate reported in the prominent study by Streeck et al. (2020) (0.36% [0.17%; 0.77%]) and closer to that obtained from a world-wide meta analysis (0.68% [0.53%; 0.82%]), where the difference can be explained by Germany's disadvantageous age structure. Provided that suitable data are available, the proposed method can be applied to estimate the IFR of virus variants and other regions.
Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, health econometrics; pandemic econometrics, Infection fatality rate, SARS-CoV-2
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)
- Economics and Econometrics
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In: Econometrics Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2, 01.05.2022, p. 515-530.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Estimating the SARS-CoV-2 Infection Fatality Rate by Data Combination
T2 - The Case of Germany's First Wave
AU - Dimpfl, Thomas
AU - Sönksen, Jantje
AU - Bechmann, Ingo
AU - Grammig, Joachim
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Royal Economic Society. Published by Oxford University Press.
PY - 2022/5/1
Y1 - 2022/5/1
N2 - Assessing the infection fatality rate (IFR) of SARS-CoV-2 in a population is a controversial issue. Due to asymptomatic courses of COVID-19, many infections remain undetected. Reported case fatality rates are therefore poor estimates of the IFR. We propose a strategy to estimate the IFR that combines official data on cases and fatalities with data from seroepidemiological studies in infection hotspots. The application of the method yields an estimate of the IFR of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 in Germany during the first wave of the pandemic of 0.83% (95% CI: [0.69%; 0.98%]), notably higher than the estimate reported in the prominent study by Streeck et al. (2020) (0.36% [0.17%; 0.77%]) and closer to that obtained from a world-wide meta analysis (0.68% [0.53%; 0.82%]), where the difference can be explained by Germany's disadvantageous age structure. Provided that suitable data are available, the proposed method can be applied to estimate the IFR of virus variants and other regions.
AB - Assessing the infection fatality rate (IFR) of SARS-CoV-2 in a population is a controversial issue. Due to asymptomatic courses of COVID-19, many infections remain undetected. Reported case fatality rates are therefore poor estimates of the IFR. We propose a strategy to estimate the IFR that combines official data on cases and fatalities with data from seroepidemiological studies in infection hotspots. The application of the method yields an estimate of the IFR of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 in Germany during the first wave of the pandemic of 0.83% (95% CI: [0.69%; 0.98%]), notably higher than the estimate reported in the prominent study by Streeck et al. (2020) (0.36% [0.17%; 0.77%]) and closer to that obtained from a world-wide meta analysis (0.68% [0.53%; 0.82%]), where the difference can be explained by Germany's disadvantageous age structure. Provided that suitable data are available, the proposed method can be applied to estimate the IFR of virus variants and other regions.
KW - COVID-19 pandemic
KW - health econometrics; pandemic econometrics
KW - Infection fatality rate
KW - SARS-CoV-2
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85143989825&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.21203/rs.3.rs-199388/v1
DO - 10.21203/rs.3.rs-199388/v1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85143989825
VL - 25
SP - 515
EP - 530
JO - Econometrics Journal
JF - Econometrics Journal
SN - 1368-4221
IS - 2
ER -