Estimation of Incubation Period Distribution of COVID-19 Using Disease Onset Forward Time: A Novel Cross-Sectional and Forward Follow-Up Study
21 Pages Posted: 6 Mar 2020
Jing Qin
Government of the United States of America - Biostatistics Research Branch
Chong You
Peking University - Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research
Abstract
Background: The current outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has quickly spread across countries and become a global crisis. However, one of the most important clinical characteristics in epidemiology, the distribution of the incubation period, remains unclear. Different estimates of the incubation period of COVID-19 were reported in recent published studies, but all have their own limitations. In this study, we propose a novel low-cost and accurate method to estimate the incubation distribution.
