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Bounding Infection Prevalence by Bounding Selectivity and Accuracy of Tests: With Application to Early COVID-19

Jörg Stoye

arXiv 14 Aug 2020 · Econometrics · publishedEconometrics Journal (2021) · 3 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2008.06178 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

I propose novel partial identification bounds on infection prevalence from information on test rate and test yield. The approach utilizes user-specified bounds on (i) test accuracy and (ii) the extent to which tests are targeted, formalized as restriction on the effect of true infection status on the odds ratio of getting tested and thereby embeddable in logit specifications. The motivating application is to the COVID-19 pandemic but the strategy may also be useful elsewhere. Evaluated on data from the pandemic's early stage, even the weakest of the novel bounds are reasonably informative. Notably, and in contrast to speculations that were widely reported at the time, they place the infection fatality rate for Italy well above the one of influenza by mid-April.

Citation extraction

28
references
36
in-text mentions
28
distinct cited
2
self-citations
5,548
main-text words

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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Watson, J., P. F. Whiting, and J. E. Brush (2020) Interpreting a covid-19 test result0.73732100%
2Yang, Y., M. Yang, C. Shen, F. Wang, J. Yuan, J. Li, M. Zhang, Z. Wa… (2020) Evaluating the accuracy of different respiratory specimens in the laboratory diagnosis and monitoring the viral shedding of 2019…0.58531100%
3Eng, J. and D. A. Bluemke (2020) Imaging Publications in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Applying New Research Results to Clinical Practice0.51121100%
4Frazier, P., S. Henderson, D. Shmoys, J. M. Cashore, N. Duan, A. Jan… (2020) COVID-19 Mathematical Modeling for Cornell’s Fall Semester, Working Paper0.51121100%
5Manski, C. F (2020) Bounding the Accuracy of Diagnostic Tests, with Application to COVID-19 Antibody Tests, Working Paper0.51121100%
6UCSF (2020) COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing, UCSF Health Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention, https://infectioncontrol.ucsfmedicalcen…0.51121100%
7Bollinger, C. R. and M. van Hasselt (2020) Estimating the cumulative rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection0.40511100%
8Canning, D., K. Mahesh, D. Rashmi, C. Muqi, and D. Bloom (2020) The association between age, COVID-19 symptoms, and social distancing behavior in the United States, Working Paper0.40511100%
9Imbens, G. W. and C. F. Manski (2004) Confidence Intervals for Partially Identified Parameters0.40511100%
10Leeflang, M., P. Bossuyt, and L. Irwig (2008) Diagnostic test accuracy may vary with prevalence: implications for evidence-based diagnosis0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 28 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Evaluating Policies Early in a Pandemic: Bounding Policy Effects with Nonrandomly Missing Data0.40511
2Who Should Get Vaccinated? Individualized Allocation of Vaccines Over SIR Network0.40511