Early characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak predict the subsequent epidemic scope

International Journal of Infectious Diseases

Christopher K. Fairley¹  Jing Wang¹  Weiming Tang²  Jason J. Ong³  Lu Bai⁴  Guihua Zhuang⁴  Yusha Tao⁴  Maosheng Zou⁵  Mingwang Shen⁵  Miao Ding⁵  Lei Zhang⁵ 

[1] Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;Corresponding author at: China-Australia Joint Research Center for Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710061, PR China.;Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, Henan, China;Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Australia;China-Australia Joint Research Center for Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710061, PR China;

关键词: COVID-19;    SARS-COV-2;    Early characteristics;    Epidemic size;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Objectives: The mostly-resolved first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in China provided a unique opportunity to investigate how the initial characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak predict its subsequent magnitude. Methods: We collected publicly available COVID-19 epidemiological data from 436 Chinese cities from 16th January–15th March 2020. Based on 45 cities that reported >100 confirmed cases, we examined the correlation between early-stage epidemic characteristics and subsequent epidemic magnitude. Results: We identified a transition point from a slow- to a fast-growing phase for COVID-19 at 5.5 (95% CI, 4.6–6.4) days after the first report, and 30 confirmed cases marked a critical threshold for this transition. The average time for the number of confirmed cases to increase from 30 to 100 (time from 30-to-100) was 6.6 (5.3–7.9) days, and the average case-fatality rate in the first 100 confirmed cases (CFR-100) was 0.8% (0.2–1.4%). The subsequent epidemic size per million population was significantly associated with both of these indicators. We predicted a ranking of epidemic size in the cities based on these two indicators and found it highly correlated with the actual classification of epidemic size. Conclusions: Early epidemic characteristics are important indicators for the size of the entire epidemic.

【 授权许可】

Unknown