Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / iii / Paper 35 / 3 / e / Solution

With the onset means ${\mu }_k(\theta ,\lambda ,\kappa )$ defined by the discrete back-calculation of infection incidence, the independent Poisson observation model yields the product likelihoodFor positive means its log-likelihood is ${\sum }_k\{y_k\log {\mu }_k-{\mu }_k-\log (y_k!)\}$. A zero mean assigns probability one to a zero count and zero to a positive count. Any unknown pre-observation infection history must be parameterised or supplied as well; it cannot silently be excluded merely because the observation series starts at $t_0$.