Intrinsic and realized generation times in infectious diseases outbreaks

Venue: The event will take in presence and online through the ZOOM platform. To get the access codes please contact the secretary office (phd.maths [at] unitn.it)
Time: 10:30 am

Alfredo De Bellis - PhD in Mathematics, University of Trento

Abstract:
The generation time (GT) plays a key role in the epidemiological surveillance. However, estimating it can be very tricky, as the infection episodes remain unobserved. Even in the rare cases with a known transmission chain (who infected whom), what we measure is the so called “realized” GT, which strongly depends on the structure of the sub-population considered. The realized GT, though, can be a biased estimator for the “intrinsic” one (i.e., the GT we would observe in unstructured populations), that is a more appropriate quantity to consider for modeling purposes or/and to inform public health decisions. Therefore, being able to estimate the intrinsic GT is fundamental in order to put in place efficient interventions.

In the first part of this talk, I will give an overview of the realized and intrinsic GT from a mathematical point of view. Then, I will discuss our recent work on the cases of the SARS-CoV-2 variants Alpha, Delta and Omicron in household transmission settings, where we provide a Bayesian inference model for transmission chain reconstruction and estimate the intrinsic GT for each variant.

Contact persons: Andrea Pugliese, Giorgio Guzzetta

The seminar corresponds to the final exam of Selected Mathematical Models for Epidemics, a planned course within Alfredo De Bellis’s first year PHD study program