In a recent work, we introduced a novel method to compute the effective reproduction number \(R_t\) and we applied it to describe the development of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. The study is based on the number of daily positive swabs as reported by the Italian Dipartimento di Protezione Civile. Recently, the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità made available the data relative of the symptomatic cases, where the reporting date is the date of beginning of symptoms instead of the date of the reporting of the positive swab. In this paper, we will discuss merits and drawbacks of this data, quantitatively comparing the quality of the pandemic indicators computed with the two samples.

在最近的工作中，我们介绍了一种计算有效繁殖数\（R_t \）的新颖方法，并将其用于描述意大利COVID-19爆发的发展。这项研究是根据意大利Protezione Civile分部报告的每日阳性拭子数量进行的。最近，意大利最高法院（Istituto Superiore diSanità）提供了与症状病例相关的数据，其中报告日期是症状开始的日期，而不是阳性拭子的报告日期。在本文中，我们将讨论此数据的优缺点，定量比较使用两个样本计算的大流行指标的质量。