A note on COVID-19 seroprevalence studies: a meta-analysis using hierarchical modelling
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract In recent weeks, several seroprevalence studies have appeared which attempt to determine the prevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the population of certain European and American locations. Many of these studies find an antibody prevalence comparable to the false positive rate of their respective serology tests and the relatively low statistical power associated with each study has invited criticism. To determine the strength of the signal, we perform a meta-analysis on the publicly available seroprevalence data based on Bayesian hierarchical modelling with Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Generalized Linear Mixed Modelling with prediction sampling. We examine studies with results from Santa Clara County (CA), Los Angeles County (CA), San Miguel County (CO), Chelsea (MA), the Comté de Genève (Switzerland), and Gangelt (Germany). Our results are in broad agreement with the conclusions of the studies; we find that there is evidence for non-trivial levels of antibody prevalence across all study locations. However, we also find that a significant probability mass exists for antibody prevalence at levels lower than the reported figures. The results of our meta-analysis on the recent seroprevalence studies point to an important and strongly suggestive signal.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.200 | 0.265 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.013 | 0.048 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".