medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.15.20065532; this version posted April 17, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license . Ines Abdeljaoued-Tej and Marc Dhenain Estimation of Tunisia COVID-19 infected cases based on mortality rate Ines Abdeljaoued-Tej1;2;∗, Marc Dhenain3;4;5;6;? 1BIMS Laboratory, LR16IPT09, Institute Pasteur of Tunisia, University of Tunis El Manar, Tunisia 2Ecole Supérieure de la Statistique et de l’Analyse de l’Information, Université de Carthage, Tunisie 3Académie Vétérinaire de France, 34, rue Bréguet, 75011 Paris, France 4Académie Nationale de Médecine, 16 rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France 5Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay UMR 9199, Laboratoire des Maladies Neurodégénératives, 18 Route du Panorama, F-92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France 6Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), Institut François Jacob, Molecular Imaging Research Center (MIRCen), 18 Route du Panorama, F-92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France ∗
[email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Estimating the number of people affected by COVID-19 is crucial in deciding which public health policies to follow. The authorities in different countries carry out mortality counts. We propose that the mortality reported in each country can be used to create an index of the number of actual cases at a given time. The specificity of whether or not deaths are rapid or not by COVID-19 also affects the number of actual cases.