{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]],"date-time":"2026-04-15T01:00:42Z","timestamp":1776214842849,"version":"3.50.1"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1011653","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,7]],"date-time":"2023-12-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1701907200000}}],"reference-count":45,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,27]],"date-time":"2023-11-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1701043200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001656","name":"Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Information and Data Science Pilot Project SIMCARD"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Information and Data Science Pilot Project SIMCARD"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001656","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001659","name":"Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["512483310"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["512483310"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001659","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010269","name":"Wellcome Trust","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["210758\/Z\/18\/Z"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["210758\/Z\/18\/Z"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010269","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010269","name":"Wellcome Trust","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["210758\/Z\/18\/Z"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["210758\/Z\/18\/Z"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010269","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.ploscompbiol.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS Comput Biol"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    The effective reproductive number\n                    <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sub>\n                      <jats:italic>t<\/jats:italic>\n                    <\/jats:sub>\n                    has taken a central role in the scientific, political, and public discussion during the COVID-19 pandemic, with numerous real-time estimates of this quantity routinely published. Disagreement between estimates can be substantial and may lead to confusion among decision-makers and the general public. In this work, we compare different estimates of the national-level effective reproductive number of COVID-19 in Germany in 2020 and 2021. We consider the agreement between estimates from the same method but published at different time points (within-method agreement) as well as retrospective agreement across eight different approaches (between-method agreement). Concerning the former, estimates from some methods are very stable over time and hardly subject to revisions, while others display considerable fluctuations. To evaluate between-method agreement, we reproduce the estimates generated by different groups using a variety of statistical approaches, standardizing analytical choices to assess how they contribute to the observed disagreement. These analytical choices include the data source, data pre-processing, assumed generation time distribution, statistical tuning parameters, and various delay distributions. We find that in practice, these auxiliary choices in the estimation of\n                    <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sub>\n                      <jats:italic>t<\/jats:italic>\n                    <\/jats:sub>\n                    may affect results at least as strongly as the selection of the statistical approach. They should thus be communicated transparently along with the estimates.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1011653","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,27]],"date-time":"2023-11-27T14:26:30Z","timestamp":1701095190000},"page":"e1011653","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Why are different estimates of the effective reproductive number so different? A case study on COVID-19 in Germany"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"19","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-1827-8670","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Elisabeth K.","family":"Brockhaus","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0318-3669","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Daniel","family":"Wolffram","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Tanja","family":"Stadler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2734-7624","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Michael","family":"Osthege","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4136-4834","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Tanmay","family":"Mitra","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Jonas M.","family":"Littek","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Ekaterina","family":"Krymova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Anna J.","family":"Klesen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1782-8109","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jana S.","family":"Huisman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3371-4072","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Stefan","family":"Heyder","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7825-7998","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Laura M.","family":"Helleckes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Matthias","family":"an der Heiden","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Sebastian","family":"Funk","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Sam","family":"Abbott","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3777-1410","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Johannes","family":"Bracher","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,27]]},"reference":[{"issue":"12","key":"pcbi.1011653.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e1008409","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008409","article-title":"Practical considerations for measuring the effective reproductive number, Rt","volume":"16","author":"KM Gostic","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLoS Computational Biology"},{"issue":"12","key":"pcbi.1011653.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1303","DOI":"10.1038\/s41562-020-01009-0","article-title":"Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions","volume":"4","author":"N Haug","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nature Human Behaviour"},{"issue":"6531","key":"pcbi.1011653.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eabd9338","DOI":"10.1126\/science.abd9338","article-title":"Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19","volume":"371","author":"JM Brauner","year":"2021","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"602","key":"pcbi.1011653.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eabg4262","DOI":"10.1126\/scitranslmed.abg4262","article-title":"Key epidemiological drivers and impact of interventions in the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England","volume":"13","author":"ES Knock","year":"2021","journal-title":"Science Translational Medicine"},{"key":"pcbi.1011653.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"423","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-022-01332-8","article-title":"One statistical analysis must not rule them all","volume":"605","author":"EJ Wagenmakers","year":"2022","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"pcbi.1011653.ref006","unstructured":"RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland. 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