Estimation of introduction and transmission rates of SARS-CoV-2 in a prospective household study

We analyse data from a prospective household study to estimate SARS-CoV-2 introduction into households, as well as within-household transmission. We take 3 age categories into account: child, adolescent and adult. The introduction rate of SARS-CoV-2 was highly variable at the time of the study, so we estimated this using a penalized spline. For the within-household model, we implemented a probabilistic final size model in Stan, which included an age dependent transmission matrix. This study shows the importance of within-household transmission in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and we used the estimated parameters to study counterfactual vaccination scenarios targeted at different age groups.

Recommended citation: van Boven, M. et al (2024). "Estimation of introduction and transmission rates of SARS-CoV-2 in a prospective household study." Plos Computational Biology. 20(1): e1011832.
Download Paper