Inference on a fatal disease

摘要

We consider the problem of inference on the initial relative infection rate of a fatal disease. The model used was considered by Saunders, Gani, Gleissner, and Watson. Here two related mertingale-based techniques are used to derive estimates, and associated standard errors, for the initial relative infection rate. The first technique requires complete information on the epidemic, the second only the total number of people who were infected at a time point and the population size. Explicit expressions for the estimates and the associated standard errors are obtained. They involve only simple calculation.