Abstract
BackgroundPrevious studies have indicated that the risk of infectious disease spread is greatest in locations where a population has massive and convenient access to the epicenter of an outbreak. However, the spatiotemporal variations and risk determinants of COVID-19 in typical labor export regions of China remain unclear. Understanding the geographical distribution of the disease and the socio-economic factors affecting its transmission is critical for disease prevention and control.MethodsA total of 2152 COVID-19 cases were reported from January 21 to February 24, 2020 across the 34 cities in Henan and Anhui. A Bayesian spatiotemporal hierarchy model was used to detect the spatiotemporal variations of the risk posed by COVID-19, and the GeoDetector q statistic was used to evaluate the determinant power of the potential influence factors.ResultsThe risk posed by COVID-19 showed geographical spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Temporally, there was an outbreak period and control period. Spatially, there were high-risk regions and low-risk regions. The high-risk regions were mainly in the southwest areas adjacent to Hubei and cities that served as economic and traffic hubs, while the low-risk regions were mainly in western Henan and eastern Anhui, far away from the epicenter. The accessibility, local economic conditions, and medical infrastructure of Wuhan in Hubei province all played an important role in the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of COVID-19 transmission. The results indicated that the q statistics of the per capita GDP and the proportion of primary industry GDP were 0.47 and 0.47, respectively. The q statistic of the population flow from Wuhan was 0.33. In particular, the results showed that the q statistics for the interaction effects between population density and urbanization, population flow from Wuhan, per capita GDP, and the number of doctors were all greater than 0.8.ConclusionsCOVID-19 showed significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the labor export regions of China. The high-risk regions were mainly located in areas adjacent to the epicenter as well as in big cities that served as traffic hubs. Population access to the epicenter, as well as local economic and medical conditions, played an important role in the interactive effects of the disease transmission.
Highlights
Previous studies have indicated that the risk of infectious disease spread is greatest in locations where a population has massive and convenient access to the epicenter of an outbreak
All of the cities presented different levels of risk according to their risk value exp
We used Bayesian spatiotemporal hierarchy model (BSTHM) as a novel two-stage method to explore the spatiotemporal variations of COVID-19 and applied the GeoDetector q statistic to quantify the determinant power of the risk factors and reveal the sources of heterogeneity underlying the patterns
Summary
Previous studies have indicated that the risk of infectious disease spread is greatest in locations where a population has massive and convenient access to the epicenter of an outbreak. China launched emergency control measures early in the outbreak, including a travel quarantine for Wuhan, movement restrictions, extended holidays, canceled crowd gatherings, calls for home isolation, and more [4, 5], the COVID-19 pandemic had already affected hundreds of thousands of people leaving Wuhan during the first two weeks of the Spring Festival transport season, many of whom potentially carried and spread the novel coronavirus to their destination regions, leading to a countrywide health challenge [6,7,8]. Identifying epidemic trends in advance can reveal much about the geographic risks and socioeconomic factors impacting the transmission mechanism of a new coronavirus, as well as how to respond to it. Though attempts have been made to improve the accuracy and validity of these estimates, the currently available estimates regarding the domestic and international transmission of COVID-19 are rather inconsistent, because of the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the disease spread and a limited understanding of its transmission mechanisms
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