Understanding epidemic data and statistics: A case study of COVID‐19

Abstract

The 2019‐Novel‐Coronavirus (COVID‐19) has affected 181 countries and out of about 1197405 confirmed cases (By April 5). Understanding the transmission dynamics of the infection in each country which affected on a daily basis and evaluating the effectiveness of control policies is critical for our further actions. To date, the statistics of COVID‐19 reported cases show more than 80 percent of infected had a mild case of disease, while around 14 percent of infected experienced a severe one and about 5 percent are categorized as critical disease victims. Today's report (2020‐04‐05; daily updates in the prepared website) shows the confirmed cases of COVID‐19 in the US, Spain, Italy, and Germany are 308850, 126168, 124632 and 96092; respectively. Calculating the total Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of Italy (2020‐04‐04), about 13.3% of confirmed cases passed away. Compared to South Korea's rate of 1.8% (7 times lower than Italy) and China's 4% (69% lower than Italy), the CFR of Italy is too high. There are some effective policies that yield significant changes in the trend of cases. The lockdown policy in China, Italy and Spain (the effect observed after some days), Shutdown of all non‐essential companies in Hubei (the effect observed after 5 days), combined policy in South Korea and reducing working hours in Iran.