A Low-Cost Early Warning Method for Infectious Diseases with Asymptomatic Carriers

TL;DR

This paper proposes a low-cost method to detect early signs of infectious diseases with asymptomatic carriers, using data from Italy's early pandemic response.

Contribution

The paper introduces a practical, low-cost early warning method for infectious diseases with asymptomatic carriers.

Findings

Early warning indicators could have identified the critical increase in infections during Italy's initial pandemic phase.

Timely detection could have enabled better containment strategies and reduced deaths.

The proposed method is designed to be practical and cost-effective for early disease detection.

Abstract

At the beginning of 2023, the Italian former prime minister, the former health minister and 17 others including the current president of the Lombardy region were placed under investigation on suspicion of aggravated culpable epidemic in connection with the government’s response at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The charges revolve around the failure by authorities to take adequate measures to prevent the spread of the virus in the Bergamo area, which experienced a significant excess of deaths during the initial outbreak. The aim of this paper is to analyse the pandemic data of Italy and the Lombardy region in the first 10 days of the pandemic, spanning from the 24th of February 2020 to the 4th of March 2020. The objective is to determine whether the use of early warning indicators could have facilitated the identification of a critical increase in infections. This identification, in turn, would have enabled the timely formulation of strategies for pandemic containment, thereby reducing the number of deaths. In conclusion, to translate our findings into practical guidelines, we propose a low-cost early warning method for infectious respiratory diseases with asymptomatic carriers.

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