Jude will be giving a talk at Trent University Next Monday.

Title: Social, economic, and environmental factors influencing the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 across countries

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has passed its initial peak in most countries in the world, making it ripe to assess whether the basic reproduction number R0 is different across countries and what demographic, social, and environmental factors other than interventions characterize vulnerability to the virus. In this talk, I will present the estimate of the basic reproduction number across countries and the approach I used in estimating them. Moreover, I will   show the association  (linear and non-linear) between COVID-19 R0 and 17 demographic, social and environmental variables obtained using a generalized additive model(GAM).  In the GAM model, the potential differences in testing and reporting  that can bias the estimated R0 is accounted for.