Zhang Stephen X, Arroyo Marioli Francisco, Gao Renfei, Wang Senhu
Faculty of Professions, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Central Bank of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2021 Sep 13;14:3775-3782. doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S326051. eCollection 2021.
Policymakers and researchers describe the COVID-19 epidemics by waves without a common vocabulary on what constitutes an epidemic wave, either in terms of a working definition or operationalization, causing inconsistencies and confusions. A working definition and operationalization can be helpful to characterize and communicate about epidemics.
We propose a working definition of epidemic waves in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and an operationalization based on the public data of the effective reproduction number R.
Our operationalization characterizes the numbers and durations of waves (upward and downward) in 179 countries.
The proposed working definition of epidemic waves provides a common and consistent vocabulary that can enable healthcare organizations and policymakers to make better description and assessment of the COVID crisis to make more informed resource planning, mobilization, and allocation temporally in the continued COVID-19 pandemic.
政策制定者和研究人员用“波”来描述新冠疫情，但在什么构成疫情波方面，无论是在工作定义还是操作层面，都没有通用的词汇，这导致了不一致和混乱。一个工作定义和操作方法有助于描述疫情并进行相关交流。
我们提出了正在发生的新冠疫情中疫情波的工作定义，并基于有效再生数R的公开数据给出了操作方法。
我们的操作方法描述了179个国家疫情波（上升和下降）的数量和持续时间。
所提出的疫情波工作定义提供了一个通用且一致的词汇，能够使医疗组织和政策制定者更好地描述和评估新冠危机，以便在持续的新冠疫情期间更明智地进行资源规划、调动和时间上的分配。
