COVID-19: Monitoring the propagation of the first waves of the pandemic

International audience ; Introduction: A phenomenological approach is proposed to monitor the propagation of the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A large set of data collected during the first months of 2020 is compiled into a series of semi-logarithmic plots, for a selection of 32 countries from the five continents. Results: Three regimes are identified in the propagation of an epidemic wave: a pre-epidemic regime 1, an exponential-growth regime 2, and a resorption regime 3. A two-parameters scaling of the first-wave death variation reported in China is used to fit the first-wave... Mehr ...