Key info


Date:
3 July 2020

Authors:
Han Fu 1, Xiaoyue Xi, Haowei Wang, Adhiratha Boonyasiri, Yuanrong Wang, Wes Hinsley, Keith J Fraser, Ruth McCabe, Daniela Olivera Mesa, Janetta Skarp, Alice Ledda, Tamsin Dewé, Amy Dighe, Peter Winskill, Sabine L van Elsland, Kylie E C Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, Samir Bhatt, Olivia Boyd, Nicholas F Brazeau, Lorenzo Cattarino, Giovanni Charles, Helen Coupland, Zulma M Cucunuba, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Christl A Donnelly, Ilaria Dorigatti, Oliver D Eales, Richard G FitzJohn, Seth Flaxman, Katy A M Gaythorpe, Azra C Ghani, William D Green, Arran Hamlet, Katharina Hauck, David J Haw, Benjamin Jeffrey, Daniel J Laydon, John A Lees, Thomas Mellan, Swapnil Mishra, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Pierre Nouvellet, Lucy Okell, Kris V Parag, Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, Steven Riley, Nora Schmit, Hayley A Thompson, H Juliette T Unwin, Robert Verity, Michaela A C Vollmer, Erik Volz, Patrick G T Walker, Caroline E Walters, Oliver J Watson, Charles Whittaker, Lilith K Whittles, Natsuko Imai, Sangeeta Bhatia, Neil M Ferguson

1Correspondence:
h.fu15@imperial.ac.uk

Download the full PDF for Report 30 See all reports

WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA), NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, Imperial College London, Department of Statistics, University of Oxford

Now published in International Journal of Infectious Diseases, January 2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.10.075 

Summary

Hubei and other provinces in China were the first to experience COVID-19 transmission between January and March 2020. Transmission was mostly contained following the implementation of several control measures. To understand the epidemic trends of COVID-19 in China, we carried out data collation and descriptive analysis in 31 provinces and municipalities, with a focus on the six most affected. An overview of control measures at the subnational level revealed that school closures, travel restrictions, community-level lockdown (closed-off management) and contact tracing were introduced concurrently around late January. The impact of these measures was different across provinces. Compared to Hubei province, the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, the other five most-affected provinces reported a lower crude case fatality ratio and proportion of severe hospitalised cases over time. In Hubei, there were fewer contacts traced per case, consistent with the contact frequency observed during the lockdown period. From March 2020, the first wave driven by local transmission declined, while the burden of imported cases increased. The focus of control measures to continue the suppression of transmission was therefore shifted towards testing and quarantine of inbound travellers. The description of the course of the epidemic and the timing of interventions is consistent with the interpretation that early implementation and timely adjustment of control measures could be important in containing transmission and minimising adverse outcomes of COVID-19. However, further investigation will be needed to disentangle the effectiveness of different control measures. By making the collated data publicly available, we also provide an additional source for research and policy planning in other settings with an ongoing epidemic.

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