Journal article
Robust estimation of the time-dependent reproduction number in the presence of weekend reporting effects
- Abstract:
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Background:
During infectious disease outbreaks, changes in pathogen transmissibility are assessed through real-time inference of metrics such as the time-dependent reproduction number (Rt), which can be estimated from disease incidence data. However, such data are often subject to a “day-of-the-week effect” (DOWE), whereby the number of cases on certain days of the week is liable to being under-reported (due to administrative delays) or overreported (as public health authorities “catch-up” on reporting delayed cases). For example, cases occurring at weekends may only be reported during the following week, leading to under-reporting at weekends and over-reporting on weekdays (a weekend reporting effect; WRE).
Methods:
We analyse simulated datasets, as well as case reports from San Francisco recorded during the 1918 influenza pandemic. We investigate the impacts of WREs on Rt estimates obtained using two approaches: i) the Cori method (a frequently applied method for estimating Rt from daily disease incidence time series data); ii) an alternative method, involving aggregating the daily incidence data into weekly values to remove the WRE and applying a previous method (the OG1 method) for inferring Rt from weekly data.
Results:
Our analyses indicate that Rt estimates obtained from standard approaches such as the Cori method can be affected negatively by WREs. In contrast, since weekly aggregation of daily data can eliminate WREs, the alternative approach generates robust Rt estimates in the presence of WREs. When aggregating the daily data into weekly values, some information is lost. However, in many scenarios, the negative impact of data aggregation on Rt inference is outweighed by the benefit of then using data that are not corrupted by a WRE.
Conclusions:
Our research highlights the importance of accounting for DOWEs, such as WREs, when estimating Rt during infectious disease outbreaks.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.4MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 626.9KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1186/s44263-026-00280-z
Authors
+ Medical Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/03x94j517
- Grant:
- MR/X018598/1
+ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0439y7842
- Grant:
- EP/S022244/1
+ National Institute for Health and Care Research
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0187kwz08
- Grant:
- NIHR207393
- Publisher:
- BioMed Central
- Journal:
- BMC Global and Public Health More from this journal
- Volume:
- 4
- Article number:
- 48
- Publication date:
- 2026-05-21
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-04-28
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2731-913X
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2412128
- Local pid:
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pubs:2412128
- Deposit date:
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2026-04-28
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Ogi-Gittins et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- ©The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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