zeroknowledgediscovery/unitcov: Universal Risk Phenotype Of US Counties For Flu-like Transmission

A universal risk phenotype of US counties for influenza-like transmission mechanisms is developed which emerges as the dominant variable driving weekly incidence totals amongst the putative set of most widely investigated covariates. Additionally, this risk phenotype allows us to design a simple forecast tool that outperforms the best performing models of incidence prediction reported in the literature. Our results show that knowledge of past epidemics may be effectively used to chart current and future ones, provided the transmission mechanisms are broadly similar, even with distinct pathogens, pathobiologies, and disease presentation.