Fig. 2

Mean change in the MRR by epidemic location and type. The average change in the mean removal rate (MRR) differed based on the type of outbreak, the location, and the independent variable (epidemic week or serial interval) used to predict changes in MRR. The error bars plotted around the estimated MRR values represent the normalized 99% confidence intervals calculated using the interactionMeans function in R. The most precise estimates were observed for the Ebola outbreak, and the largest for the outbreaks of MERS. Predicting the mean change of the MRR with serial interval generally led to tighter confidence intervals than predictions using epidemic week. These results indicate that an outbreak’s type and location are important determinants of the mean change in the MRR per epidemic week or serial interval