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

  1. Huaiyu Tian
  2. Yonghong Liu
  3. Yidan Li
  4. Chieh-Hsi Wu
  5. Bin Chen
  6. Moritz U. G. Kraemer
  7. Bingying Li
  8. Jun Cai
  9. Bo Xu
  10. Qiqi Yang
  11. Ben Wang
  12. Peng Yang
  13. Yujun Cui
  14. Yimeng Song
  15. Pai Zheng
  16. Quanyi Wang
  17. Ottar N. Bjornstad
  18. Ruifu Yang
  19. Bryan T. Grenfell
  20. Oliver G. Pybus
  21. Christopher Dye

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Abstract

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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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.01.30.20019844: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

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  2. Version published to 10.1126/science.abb6105
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.01.30.20019844 on medRxiv