Dynamics-informed deconvolutional neural networks for super-resolution identification of regime changes in epidemiological time series

Sci Adv. 2023 Jul 14;9(28):eadf0673. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adf0673. Epub 2023 Jul 14.

Abstract

The ability to infer the timing and amplitude of perturbations in epidemiological systems from their stochastically spread low-resolution outcomes is crucial for multiple applications. However, the general problem of connecting epidemiological curves with the underlying incidence lacks the highly effective methodology present in other inverse problems, such as super-resolution and dehazing from computer vision. Here, we develop an unsupervised physics-informed convolutional neural network approach in reverse to connect death records with incidence that allows the identification of regime changes at single-day resolution. Applied to COVID-19 data with proper regularization and model-selection criteria, the approach can identify the implementation and removal of lockdowns and other nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) with 0.93-day accuracy over the time span of a year.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • Communicable Disease Control
  • Humans
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Time Factors