State heterogeneity of human mobility and COVID-19 epidemics in the European Union

  1. Xiaoling Yuan
  2. Kun Hu
  3. Jie Xu
  4. Xuchen Zhang
  5. Wei Bao
  6. Charles F. Lynch
  7. Lanjing Zhang

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Abstract

Human mobility was associated with epidemic changes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, where strict public health interventions reduced human mobility and COVID-19 epidemics. But its association with COVID-19 epidemics in the European Union (EU) is unclear. In this quasi-experimental study, we modelled the temporal trends in human mobility and epidemics of COVID-19 in the 27 EU states between January 15 and May 9, 2020. COVID-19 and human mobility had 3 trend-segments, including an upward trend in COVID-19 daily incidence and a downward trend in most human mobilities in the middle segment. Compared with the EU states farther from Italy, the state-wide lockdown dates were more likely linked to turning points of human mobilities in the EU states closer to Italy, which were also more likely linked to second turning points of COVID-19 epidemics. Among the examined human mobilities, the second turning points in driving mobility and the first turning points in parks mobility were the best factors that connected lockdown dates and COVID-19 epidemics in the EU states closer to Italy. Our findings highlight the state- and mobility-heterogeneity in the associations of public health interventions and human mobility with changes of COVID-19 epidemics in the EU states.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.10.20127530: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The dates of implementing state-wide lockdown and social distancing, and lifting lockdown-bans in a state were extracted from the Wikipedia page,7 and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, if needed.
    Wikipedia
    suggested: (Wikipedia, RRID:SCR_004897)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    A limitation of this study is that some non-EU states in Europe were not analyzed, including the United Kingdom and Switzerland, while their human mobility might also be associated with COVID-19 epidemics. Moreover, the state heterogeneity among the EU states may not be generalizable to other continents because of the unique cultures and geopolitical systems in the EU. China, for example, implemented very strict public health interventions and may not experience significant providence-heterogeneity in the associations of public health interventions with COVID-19 epidemics. Furthermore, the mobility data of Cyprus were not available, and could not be reliably analyzed. Finally, the sensitivity and specificity of COVID-19 tests used in each state might differ, and lead to some variances in the (daily) incidence of COVID-19. However, all clinical tests on the EU markets must have gone through regulatory reviews by the European Medicine Agency, and should have considerably similar sensitivity and specificity. The single-market policy in the EU also reduced differences in the tests’ availability among all EU states.16 The variances in COVID-19 test performance thus were minimal in the EU states. In summary, we showed the heterogeneity of state and modality of human-mobility in COVID-19 epidemics and their associated factors in the EU states. We also characterized the trends in COVID-19 epidemics and human mobilities across the EU states. These findings may help choose the best tim...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.10.20127530v1 on medRxiv