An investigation of transmission control measures during the first 50 days of the COVID-19 epidemic in China

Abstract

The most effective interventions By 23 January 2020, China had imposed a national emergency response to restrict travel and impose social distancing measures on its populace in an attempt to inhibit the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, which measures were most effective is uncertain. Tian et al. performed a quantitative analysis of the impact of control measures between 31 December 2019 and 19 February 2020, which encompasses the Lunar New Year period when millions of people traveled across China for family visits. Travel restrictions in and out of Wuhan were too late to prevent the spread of the virus to 262 cities within 28 days. However, the epidemic peaked in Hubei province on 4 February 2020, indicating that measures such as closing citywide public transport and entertainment venues and banning public gatherings combined to avert hundreds of thousands of cases of infection. It is unlikely that this decline happened because the supply of susceptible people was exhausted, so relaxing control measures could lead to a resurgence. Science , this issue p. 638

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Affiliated Institutions

• University of Southampton GB
• Harvard University US
• Hong Kong Design Centre HK
• Boston Children's Hospital US
• Beijing Normal University CN
• Pennsylvania State University US
• University of Hong Kong HK
• Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy US
• Princeton University US
• University of California, Davis US
• Tsinghua University CN
• Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control CN
• Fogarty International Center US
• Institute of Microbiology CN
• University of Oxford GB
• Peking University CN
• State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science CN
• National Institutes of Health US

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