Working Paper: NBER ID: w27028
Authors: Ali Hortasu; Jiarui Liu; Timothy Schwieg
Abstract: We develop an analytically tractable method to estimate the fraction of unreported infections in epidemics with a known epicenter and estimate the number of unreported COVID-19 infections in the US during the first half of March 2020. Our method utilizes the covariation in initial reported infections across US regions and the number of travelers to these regions from the epicenter, along with the results of an early randomized testing study in Iceland. Using our estimates of the number of unreported infections, which are substantially larger than the number of reported infections, we also provide estimates for the infection fatality rate using data on reported COVID-19 fatalities from U.S. counties.
Keywords: COVID-19; unreported infections; infection fatality rate
JEL Codes: C00; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| reported infections (Y10) | unreported infections (Y50) |
| travel patterns (R41) | reported infections (Y10) |
| unreported infections (Y50) | reported infections (Y10) |
| unreported infections (Y50) | infection fatality rate (F53) |
| reported infections (Y10) | infection fatality rate (F53) |