Early evaluation of the Wuhan City travel restrictions in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak
Huaiyu Tian, Yidan Li, Yonghong Liu, Moritz U. G. Kraemer, Bin Chen, Jun Cai, Bingying Li, Bo Xu, Qiqi Yang, Peng Yang, Yujun Cui, Yimeng Song, Pai Zheng, Quanyi Wang, Ottar N Bjornstad, Ruifu Yang, Oliver Pybus, Bryan Grenfell, Christopher Dye
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.20019844
This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
Abstract
An ongoing outbreak of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first reported in China and has spread worldwide. On January 23rd 2020 China shut down transit in and out of Wuhan, a major transport hub and conurbation of 11 million inhabitants, to contain the outbreak. By combining epidemiological and human mobility data we find that the travel ban slowed the dispersal of nCoV from Wuhan to other cities in China by 2.91 days (95% CI: 2.54-3.29). This delay provided time to establish and reinforce other control measures that are essential to halt the epidemic. The ongoing dissemination of 2019-nCoV provides an opportunity to examine how travel restrictions impede the spatial dispersal of an emerging infectious disease.
