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Article History

Received: 10 December 2018

Accepted: 5 March 2019

First Online: 20 March 2019

Authors’ information

: The authors are experts with an interest in infectious disease epidemiology and also theoretical epidemiology, and the corresponding author is the chairperson and team leader of the Department of Hygiene, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine.

: The purpose of the study was explained to participants and they were ensured that the extent of use of the survey information was limited to the present study. Informed consent was obtained via the internet webpage, and participants had the right to withdraw at any time during the study period. The Medical Ethics Committees at the Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo approved this study (approval ID: 10478). As for the seroepidemiological data, we used publicly available data in the present study []. The datasets had already been fully anonymized and did not include any identifiable information. Thus, ethical approval was not required for the analysis of seroepidemiological data.

: Not applicable – all details relating to participants were de-identified prior to inclusion in this study.

: The authors declare that co-author H. Nishiura is the Editor-in-Chief of <i>Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling</i>. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all policies of <i>Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling</i> on sharing data and materials.

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