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. 2020 Jul;92(7):863-867.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.25883. Epub 2020 Apr 28.

Failure in initial stage containment of global COVID-19 epicenters

Veria Khosrawipour  1   2 , Hien Lau  1 , Tanja Khosrawipour  1   3 , Piotr Kocbach  4 , Hirohito Ichii  1 , Jacek Bania  2 , Agata Mikolajczyk  5
Affiliations

Failure in initial stage containment of global COVID-19 epicenters

Veria Khosrawipour et al. J Med Virol. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

With multiple virus epicenters, COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Consequently, many countries have implemented different policies to manage this crisis including curfew and lockdown. However, the efficacy of individual policies remains unclear with respect to COVID-19 case development. We analyzed available data on COVID-19 cases of eight majorly affected countries, including China, Italy, Iran, Germany, France, Spain, South Korea, and Japan. Growth rates and doubling time of cases were calculated for the first 6 weeks after the initial cases were declared for each respective country and put into context with implemented policies. Although the growth rate of total confirmed COVID-19 cases in China has decreased, those for Japan have remained constant. For European countries, the growth rate of COVID-19 cases considerably increased during the second time interval. Interestingly, the rates for Germany, Spain, and France are the highest measured in the second interval and even surpass the numbers in Italy. Although the initial data in Asian countries are encouraging with respect to case development at the initial stage, the opposite is true for European countries. Based on our data, disease management in the 2 weeks following the first reported cases is of utmost importance.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; effective; measures; pandemic; spread.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cumulative development of COVID‐19 cases in China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and Iran according to WHO data. Data for the months of January, February and March and magnification of latest case developments outside of China
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative development of COVID‐19 cases in China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain within the first and second 3‐week intervals. Projections of the calculated exponential growth within both intervals for each respective country
Figure 3
Figure 3
Growth rates for China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and Iran at each time interval (95% CI)
Figure 4
Figure 4
Doubling time of COVID‐19 cases for China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and Iran at each time interval (95% CI)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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