Spread and control of COVID-19 in China and their associations with population movement, public health emergency measures, and medical resources

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 epidemic, first emerged in Wuhan during December 2019, has spread globally. While the mass population movement for Chinese New Year has significantly influenced spreading the disease, little direct evidence exists about the relevance to epidemic and its control of population movement from Wuhan, local emergency response, and medical resources in China.

METHODS Spearman’s correlation analysis was performed between official data of confirmed COVID-19 cases from Jan 20^th to Feb 19^th, 2020 and real-time travel data and health resources data.

RESULTS There were 74,675 confirmed COVID-19 cases in China by Feb 19^th, 2020. The overall fatality rate was 2.84%, much higher in Hubei than in other regions (3.27% vs 0.73%). The index of population inflow from Hubei was positively correlated with total (Provincial r=0.9159, p<0.001; City r=0.6311, p<0.001) and primary cases (Provincial r=0.8702, p<0.001; City r=0.6358, p<0.001). The local health emergency measures (eg, city lockdown and traffic control) were associated with reduced infections nationwide. Moreover, the number of public health employees per capita was inversely correlated with total cases (r=−0.6295, p <0.001) and infection rates (r =−0.4912, p <0.01). Similarly, cities with less medical resources had higher fatality (r =−0.4791, p<0.01) and lower cure rates (r = 0.5286, p<0.01) among the confirmed cases.

CONCLUSIONS The spread of the COVID-19 in China in its early phase was attributed primarily to population movement from Hubei, and effective governmental health emergency measures and adequate medical resources played important roles in subsequent control of epidemic and improved prognosis of affected individuals.