Ren, Z;
Li, R;
Zhang, T;
Chen, B;
Wang, C;
Li, M;
Song, S;
... Xu, B; + view all
(2021)
Reduction of human mobility matters during early covid-19 outbreaks: Evidence from india, japan and china.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
, 18
(6)
, Article 2826. 10.3390/ijerph18062826.
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Abstract
Mobility restrictions have been a heated topic during the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, multiple recent findings have verified its importance in blocking virus spread. Evidence on the association between mobility, cases imported from abroad and local medical resource supplies is limited. To reveal the association, this study quantified the importance of inter-and intra-country mobility in containing virus spread and avoiding hospitalizations during early stages of COVID-19 outbreaks in India, Japan, and China. We calculated the timevarying reproductive number (Rt) and duration from illness onset to diagnosis confirmation (Doc), to represent conditions of virus spread and hospital bed shortages, respectively. Results showed that inter-country mobility fluctuation could explain 80%, 35%, and 12% of the variance in imported cases and could prevent 20 million, 5 million, and 40 million imported cases in India, Japan and China, respectively. The critical time for screening and monitoring of imported cases is 2 weeks at minimum and 4 weeks at maximum, according to the time when the Pearson’s Rs between Rt and imported cases reaches a peak (>0.8). We also found that if local transmission is initiated, a 1% increase in intra-country mobility would result in 1430 (±501), 109 (±181), and 10 (±1) additional bed shortages, as estimated using the Doc in India, Japan, and China, respectively. Our findings provide vital reference for governments to tailor their pre-vaccination policies regarding mobility, especially during future epidemic waves of COVID-19 or similar severe epidemic outbreaks.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Reduction of human mobility matters during early covid-19 outbreaks: Evidence from india, japan and china |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/ijerph18062826 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062826 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/) |
| Keywords: | human mobility; reproductive number; imported coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); hospital bed shortage; duration from COVID-19 onset to diagnosis confirmation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10125224 |
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