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. 2023 Jul:192:122572.
doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122572. Epub 2023 Apr 10.

A pandemic momentum index to manage the spread of COVID-19

Enrique Orihuel  1 , Juan Sapena  2 , Ramón Bertó  1 , Josep Navarro  2
Affiliations

A pandemic momentum index to manage the spread of COVID-19

Enrique Orihuel et al. Technol Forecast Soc Change. 2023 Jul.

Abstract

Quantifying the spreading power of a pandemic like COVID-19 is important for the early implementation of early restrictions on social mobility and other interventions to slow its spread. This work aims to quantify the power of spread, defining a new indicator, the pandemic momentum index. It is based on the analogy between the kinematics of disease spread and the kinematics of a solid in Newtonian mechanics. This index, I PM , is useful for assessing the risk of spread. Based on the evolution of the pandemic in Spain, a decision-making scheme is proposed that allows early responses to the spread and decreases the incidence of the disease. This index has been calculated retrospectively for the pandemic in Spain, and a counterfactual analysis shows that if the decision-making scheme had been used as a guide, the most significant decisions on restrictions would have been advanced: the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 would have been much lower during the period studied, with a significant reduction in the total number of cases: 83 % (sd = 2.6). The results of this paper are consistent with the numerous studies on the pandemic that concluded that the early implementation of restrictions is more important than their severity. Early response slows the spread of the pandemic by applying less severe mobility restrictions, reducing the number of cases and deaths, and doing less damage to the economy.

Keywords: COVID-19; Counterfactual; Decision-making scheme; Early response; Pandemic momentum.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
log10 of total COVID-19 cases/100,000 population from pandemic start to 31-3-2021 in 25 countries with very high Human Development Index (>0.8) and population > 5 million.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Index of pandemic momentum IPM in Spain (blue line) and smoothed IPM∗ (red line). The right axis shows pandemic velocity u∗(new daily cases smoothed) (orange bars). The irregularities observed mainly in March 2021 are due to negative values of daily cases, due to corrections by the Health Ministry. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The three pandemic waves in Spain. u∗ versus IA14∗, with the constant IPM∗ lines (in red) and the symmetry line (dotted blue). Arrows indicate the time direction. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Plateau at the end of 1st wave and 2nd wave start, with the constant IPM∗ lines (in red) and the symmetry line (dotted blue). Arrows indicate the time direction. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Counterfactual analysis in Spain from February 24 to May 24, 2020, with intervention date at March 2. Actual daily cases smoothed (blue line) and counterfactual with the peak at 12, 14 and 16 after an intervention. The percentage reduction of cases in the period has been estimated at 88.9, 84.7 and 77.1, respectively (case reduction average = 83.6 %; sd = 6.0). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Counterfactual analysis in Spain from 24 to 2-20 to 28-2-21, with intervention dates at 2-3-20, 7-7-20 and 15-12-20. Actual daily cases smoothed and counterfactual with a peak at 12, 14 and 16 after interventions. The percentage reduction of cases in the period has been estimated at 85.4, 83.1 and 80.3, respectively (case reduction average = 83.0 %; sd = 2.6).
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Epidemic curves u∗ in Spain and Finland from 24-02-2020 to 28-2-2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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