Primary author: David Jorgensen

Olivia Boyd, Lily Geidelberg, David Jorgensen, Manon Ragonnet, Igor Siveroni, Erik Volz and the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team

Report prepared on 2020-05-28

This report uses full genome sequence data for Telangana shard publicly by Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology and Gandhi Medical College and a set of international background sequences from GISAID (laboratory acknowledgements)

Key points

  • We estimate a number of key epidemiological parameters for Telangana based on the genetic diversity of these samples alongside a set of closely related sequences from elsewhere which act as a global reservoir.
  • In this preliminary analysis we estimate a basic reproduction number (R0) of 3.19 in Telangana with R falling below 1 by the time of the last available sequence data at the end of April.
  • We estimate a low reporting rate in Telangana with a median estimate from the phylodynamic model of 73849 cases at the end of April compared to 1009 reported cases at the same time point.

This is analysis is based on :

  • 39 whole genomes sampled from within Telangana
  • 51 whole genomes sampled from outside of Telangana
  • Samples within Telangana were collected between 2020-02-04 and 2020-04-28

As duplicate sequences and those with likely sequencing errors or significant gaps were removed prior to analysis this represents a smaller sample than the total number of Telangana samples uploaded to gisaid. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the included sequences over time, including external sequences.

Reported cases for comparison to our model predictions are taken from covid19india.org, a crowdsourced database for SARS-CoV-2 data from India and so may not match reported cases from government sources exactly. These data are used for comparison purposes and to estimate the reporting rate and do not influence the phylodynamic analysis.

plot of chunk sampling dist

Figure 1: Sampling distribution over time of number of sequences included within the region versus sequences included from the international reservoir.

Estimated infections?

In this preliminary analysis we estimate 73849 [10396-129336] median [95%CI] cumulative infections at the time of the the last sample (2020-04-28). At the same time point there were 1009 reported cases. The estimates follow a similar trajectory to the reported cases at a different magnitude. The peak in daily infections in the model lags the peak in reported cases with a later start to the downwards trajectory in cases. This fit will likely improve with further sequence data but may also be improved with a piecewise estimate of R(t) which can fit more dramatic changes in incidence than the current smoothed estimate.

plot of chunk Cumulative estimated infections through time

plot of chunk Cumulative estimated infections through time log scale

Figure 2: Estimated cumulative infections through time represented by solid black line (median) and 95% CrI (ribbon). Points represent reported cases in Telangana. The dashed line indicates the date of last sample in Telangana in this analysis.

  • Estimated cumulative infections at last sample (2020-04-28): 73849 [10396-129336] median [95%CI]

  • Cumulative confirmed infections reported at 2020-04-28: 1009

plot of chunk daily estimated infections through time log scale

Figure 3: Estimated daily infections through time represented by solid black line (median) and 95% CrI (ribbon). Points represent reported cases in Telangana. The dashed line indicates the date of last sample in Telangana in this analysis.

plot of chunk reporting

Figure 4: Estimated percentage of daily cases reported in Telangana. Error bars represent the 95% credible interval.

plot of chunk Rt

Figure 5: Reproduction number through time. The black vertical dashed line indicates the date of last sample in Telangana in this analysis. The red dashed vertical line represents the date of lockdown in India.

Reproduction number at last sample (2020-04-28): 0.391 [0.0501-1.75] median [95% CrI]

How quickly has the epidemic in Telangana grown?

Quantile Reproduction number Growth rate (per day) Doubling time (days)
50% 3.19 0.199 3.48
2.5% 1.97 0.102 2.32
97.5% 4.72 0.298 6.78

Table 1: Reproduction number, growth rate and doubling times

the R0 and R(t) estimates presented here are broadly in line with estimates produced by other groups using only epidemiological data.

How has SARS-CoV 2 evolved in Telangana?

plot of chunk ml_tree

Figure 6: Maximum likelihood phylogeny with the x-axis representing NT substitutions per site. The colour of the tips corresponds to sampling location; red tips were sampled from within the region, grey tips from outside

plot of chunk mcc_tree

Figure 7: Time scaled phylogeny co-estimated with epidemiological parameters. The colour of the tips corresponds to location sampling; red tips were sampled from within Telangana, blue tips from outside.

We present a time scaled phylogeny of SARS-CoV-2 in Telangana and the included international reservoir. As few internal nodes have high posterior support we also present a maximum likelhood phylogeny showing genetic distance between the included sequences. Telangana sequences tend to cluster closely together suggesting that the majority of sequenced SARS-CoV-2 results from transmission within the region rather than introductions from elsewhere. This is in keeping with the timing of the epidemic in India which follows the introduction of social distancing measures in most other heavily affected regions but may also represent targeted sampling strategies, such as contact tracing, in the sampled genetic data.

Molecular clock rate of evolution: 0.00174 [0.00136-0.00214] median [95% CrI]

Methods summary

Details on methods and priors can be found here.

Statistic mean ESS
posterior -42787 169
likelihood -42755 1526
prior -32.15 114
treeLikelihood.algn -42755 1526
TreeHeight 0.2852 218
clockRate 0.001741 163
kappa 4.277 1750
PhydynSEIR -0.9588 119
seir.E 24.73 115
seir.S 95031 759
seir.b 23.73 147
seir.exog 0.001645 108
seir.exogGrowthRate 24.47 48
seir.importRate 0.08811 1409
seir.p_h 0.2158 222
seir.tau 74.34 2351
freqParameter.1 0.2979 671
freqParameter.2 0.1826 804
freqParameter.3 0.1951 795
freqParameter.4 0.3245 670

Table 2: Effective sample size of model parameters

Model version: seijr_0.1.1_coupled

Report version: 20200528-153636-b3e93655

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London.

Sequence data were provided by GISAID and these laboratories.