Time-resolving the COVID-19 outbreak using frequency domain analysis

Difficulties assessing and predicting the current outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 can be traced, in part, to the limitations of a static description of a dynamic system. Fourier transforming the time-domain data of infections and fatalities into the frequency domain makes the dynamics easily accessible. Defining a quantity like the “case fatality” as a spectral density allows a more sensible comparison between different countries and demographics during an ongoing outbreak. Such a case fatality informs not only how many of the confirmed cases end up as fatalities, but also when. For COVID-19, knowing this time and using the entire case fatality spectrum allows determining that an outbreak had entered a steady-state (most likely its end) about 14 days before this is obvious from time-domain data. The lag between confirmations and deaths also helps to estimate the effectiveness of contact management: The larger the lag, the less time the average confirmed person had to infect people before quarantine.