Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic highlights the need for effective tools capable of predicting the onset of infection outbreaks at their early stages. The tracing of confirmed cases and the prediction of the local dynamics of contagion through early indicators are crucial measures to a successful fight against emerging infectious diseases (EID). The proposed framework is model-free and applies Early Warning Detection Systems (EWDS) techniques to detect changes in the territorial spread of infections in the very early stages of onset. This study uses publicly available raw data on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 mainly sourced from the database of the Italian Civil Protection Department. Two distinct EWDS approaches, the Hub-Jones (H&J) and Strozzi-Zaldivar (S&Z), are adapted and applied to the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. They promptly generate warning signals and detect the onset of an epidemic at early surveillance stages even if working on the limited daily available, open-source data. Additionally, EWDS S&Z criterion is theoretically validated on the basis of the epidemiological SIR. Discussed EWDS successfully analyze self-accelerating systems, like the SARS-CoV-2 scenario, to precociously identify an epidemic spread through the calculation of onset parameters. This approach can also facilitate early clustering detection, further supporting common fight strategies against the spread of EIDs. Overall, we are presenting an effective tool based on solid scientific and methodological foundations to be used to complement medical actions to contrast the spread of infections such as COVID-19.