Estimating the effective reproduction number of COVID-19 via the chain ladder method

This paper addressed a critical issue of reporting delays in estimating the effective reproduction number, focusing on the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reporting delay problem is a pervasive challenge, impacting the accuracy of the estimation and consequently influencing public health decision-making. Through the exploration of the application of the Chain Ladder method, a well-established technique from actuarial science, a novel approach to mitigate the effects of reporting delays in infectious disease epidemiology was proposed. By applying the Chain Ladder method to infectious disease data, we illustrated its potential to provide more accurate and timely estimation, accounting for reporting delays inherent in epidemiological surveillance systems.