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The appearance and fast spreading of Covid-19 took the international community by surprise. Collaboration between researchers, public health workers, and politicians has been established to deal with the epidemic. One important contribution from researchers in epidemiology is the analysis of trends so that both the current state and short-term future trends can be carefully evaluated. Gompertz model has been shown to correctly describe the dynamics of cumulative confirmed cases, since it is characterized by a decrease in growth rate showing the effect of control measures. Thus, it provides a way to systematically quantify the Covid-19 spreading velocity and it allows short-term predictions and longer-term estimations. This model has been employed to fit the cumulative cases of Covid-19 from several European countries. Results show that there are systematic differences in spreading velocity among countries. The model predictions provide a reliable picture of the short-term evolution in countries that are in the initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak, and may permit researchers to uncover some characteristics of the long-term evolution. These predictions can also be generalized to calculate short-term hospital and intensive care units (ICU) requirements. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

The present report aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the pandemic situation of COVID-19 in the EU countries, and to be able to foresee the situation in the next coming days. We employ an empirical model, verified with the evolution of the number of confirmed cases in previous countries where the epidemic is close to conclude, including all provinces of China. The model does not pretend to interpret the causes of the evolution of the cases but to permit the evaluation of the quality of control measures made in each state and a short-term prediction of tendencies. Note, however, that the effects of the measures' control that start on a given day are not observed until approximately 5-7 days later. The model and predictions are based on two parameters that are daily fitted to available data: a: the velocity at which spreading specific rate slows down; the higher the value, the better the control. K: the final number of expected cumulated cases, which cannot be evaluated at the initial stages because growth is still exponential. Next, we show a report with 8 graphs and a table with the short-term predictions for (1) European Union and its countries, (2) other countries, (3) Spain and its autonomous communities. We are currently adjusting the model to countries and regions with at least 4 days with more than 100 confirmed cases and a current load over 200 cases. The predicted period of a country depends on the number of datapoints over this 100 cases threshold: Group A: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 10 consecutive days or more ¿ 3-5 days prediction; Group B: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 7 to 9 consecutive days ¿ 2 days prediction; Group C: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 4 to 6 days ¿ 1 d ay prediction. We have introduced a change in fittings, that are now weighted at some points. The whole methodology employed in the inform is explained in the last pages of this document. ; These reports are funded by the European Commission (DG CONNECT, LC-01485746) PJC and MC received funding from "la Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; CP, DL, SA, MC, received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00 ; Postprint (published version)

Covid-19 appearance and fast spreading took by surprise the international community. Collaboration between researchers, public health workers and politicians has been established to deal with the epidemic. One important contribution from researchers in epidemiology is the analysis of trends so that both current state and short-term future trends can be carefully evaluated. Gompertz model has shown to correctly describe the dynamics of cumulative confirmed cases, since it is characterized by a decrease in growth rate that is able to show the effect of control measures. Thus, it provides a way to systematically quantify the Covid-19 spreading velocity. Moreover, it allows to carry out short-term predictions and long-term estimations that may facilitate policy decisions and the revision of in-place confinement measures and the development of new protocols. This model has been employed to fit the cumulative cases of Covid-19 from several Chinese provinces and from other countries with a successful containment of the disease. Results show that there are systematic differences in spreading velocity between countries. In countries that are in the initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak, model predictions provide a reliable picture of its short-term evolution and may permit to unveil some characteristics of the long-term evolution. These predictions can also be generalized to short-term hospital and Intensive Care Units (ICU) requirements, which together with the equivalent predictions on mortality provide key information for health officials. ; CP, PJC and MC received funding from La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; PJC received funding from Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR), Grup Unitat de Tuberculosi Experimental, 2017-SGR-500; CP, DL, SA, MC received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00. This work has been also partially funded by the European Comission - DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology through the contract LC-01485746. ; Preprint

The present report aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the pandemic situation of COVID-19 in the EU countries, and to be able to foresee the situation in the next coming days. We employ an empirical model, verified with the evolution of the number of confirmed cases in previous countries where the epidemic is close to conclude, including all provinces of China. The model does not pretend to interpret the causes of the evolution of the cases but to permit the evaluation of the quality of control measures made in each state and a short-term prediction of tendencies. Note, however, that the effects of the measures' control that start on a given day are not observed until approximately 5-7 days later. The model and predictions are based on two parameters that are daily fitted to available data: a: the velocity at which spreading specific rate slows down; the higher the value, the better the control. K: the final number of expected cumulated cases, which cannot be evaluated at the initial stages because growth is still exponential. Next, we show a report with 8 graphs and a table with the short-term predictions for (1) European Union and its countries, (2) other countries, (3) Spain and its autonomous communities. We are currently adjusting the model to countries and regions with at least 4 days with more than 100 confirmed cases and a current load over 200 cases. The predicted period of a country depends on the number of datapoints over this 100 cases threshold: Group A: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 10 consecutive days or more ¿ 3-5 days prediction; Group B: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 7 to 9 consecutive days ¿ 2 days prediction; Group C: countries that have reported more than 100 cumulated cases for 4 to 6 days ¿ 1 d ay prediction. We have introduced a change in fittings, that are now weighted at some points. The whole methodology employed in the inform is explained in the last pages of this document. ; These reports are funded by the European Commission (DG CONNECT, LC-01485746) PJC and MC received funding from "la Caixa" Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; CP, DL, SA, MC, received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00 ; Postprint (published version)

Policymakers need a clear and fast assessment of the real spread of the epidemic of COVID-19 in each of their respective countries. Standard measures of the situation provided by the governments include reported positive cases and total deaths. While total deaths immediately indicate that countries like Italy and Spain have the worst situation as of mid April 2020, on its own, reported cases do not provide a correct picture of the situation. The reason is that different countries diagnose diversely and present very distinctive reported case fatality rate (CFR). The same levels of reported incidence and mortality might hide a very different underlying picture. Here we present a straightforward and robust estimation of the diagnostic rate in each European country. From that estimation we obtain an uniform unbiased incidence of the epidemic. The method to obtain the diagnostic rate is transparent and empiric. The key assumption of the method is that the real CFR in Europe of COVID-19 is not strongly country-dependent. We show that this number is not expected to be biased due to demography nor the way total deaths are reported. The estimation protocol has a dynamic nature, and it has been giving converging numbers for diagnostic rates in all European countries as of mid April 2020. From this diagnostic rate, policy makers can obtain an Effective Potential Growth (EPG) updated everyday providing an unbiased assessment of the countries with more potential to have an uncontrolled situation. The method developed will be used to track possible improvements on the diagnostic rate in European countries as the epidemic evolves. ; CP, PJC and MC received funding from La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; PJC received funding from Agencia de Gestio d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR), Grup Unitat de Tuberculosi Experimental, 2017-SGR-500; CP, DL, SA, MC received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00. EA-L received funding from Spanish Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad under grant number SAF2017-88019-C3-2-R. This project has been partially funded by the European Comission - DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology through the contract LC-01485746 ; Preprint

Despite their clear lesser vulnerability to COVID-19, the extent by which children are susceptible to getting infected by SARS-CoV-2 and their capacity to transmit the infection to other people remains inadequately characterized. We aimed to evaluate the role of school reopening and the preventive strategies in place at schools in terms of overall risk for children and community transmission, by comparing transmission rates in children as detected by a COVID-19 surveillance platform in place in Catalonian Schools to the incidence at the community level. ; : Funding The components of the analysis drawn from the different KIDS Corona platform have been funded by Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Banco Santander and other private donors of Kidscorona. We also acknowledge funding from La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; and funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00. This work has been also partially funded by the European Commission - DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology through the contract LC-01485746. ISGlobal receives support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the "Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019-2023" Program (CEX2018-000806-S), and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program. CISM is supported by the Government of Mozambique and the Spanish Agency for International Development (AECID). NB is supported by an FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Universities (FPU18/04260). BB is a Beatriu de Pino´s postdoctoral fellow granted by the Government of Catalonia's Secretariat for Universities and Research, and by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions COFUND Programme (BP3, 801370). Role of the funding source The funders had no role in the interpretation of the data or in the writing up of the manuscript. ; Postprint (published version)