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. 2020 Dec;9(1):988-990.
doi: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1760143.

Impact of population movement on the spread of 2019-nCoV in China

Chi Zhang  1 , Cai Chen  1 , Wei Shen  1 , Feng Tang  1 , Hao Lei  2 , Yu Xie  1 , Zicheng Cao  1 , Kang Tang  1 , Junbo Bai  1 , Lehan Xiao  1 , Yutian Xu  3 , Yanxin Song  4 , Jiwei Chen  3 , Zhihui Guo  1 , Yichen Guo  1 , Xiao Wang  1 , Modi Xu  1 , Huachun Zou  1 , Yuelong Shu  1   5 , Xiangjun Du  1   5
Affiliations

Impact of population movement on the spread of 2019-nCoV in China

Chi Zhang et al. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Since Dec 2019, China has experienced an outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV. A travel ban was implemented for Wuhan, Hubei on Jan 23 to slow down the outbreak. We found a significant positive correlation between population influx from Wuhan and confirmed cases in other cities across China (R2 = 0.85, P < 0.001), especially cities in Hubei (R2 = 0.88, P < 0.001). Removing the travel restriction would have increased 118% (91%-172%) of the overall cases for the coming week, and a travel ban taken three days or a week earlier would have reduced 47% (26%-58%) and 83% (78%-89%) of the early cases. We would expect a 61% (48%-92%) increase of overall cumulative cases without any restrictions on returning residents, and 11% (8%-16%) increase if the travel ban stays in place for Hubei. Cities from Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Capital Economic Circle regions are at higher risk.

Keywords: 2019-nCov; population movement; risk; spread; travel ban.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Impact of Wuhan’s travel ban on 2019-nCoV spread in China. (A) Population movement data for Wuhan between 1 January and 14 February 2020, and during the same lunar period of 2019. (B) Heat map of additional cases for cities in China, caused by cancelling Wuhan’s travel ban on 23 January 2020. (C) Protection rate heat map for cities in China based on a three-day-earlier lockdown of Wuhan. Protection rate was calculated as percentage of reduction from the observed cases. Cities without population influx from Wuhan (B) and without confirmed cases (C) between Jan 24 and Jan 30, 2020, are in grey (check supplementary materials for more details).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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