Time series cross-correlation between home range and number of infected people during the COVID-19 pandemic in a suburban city

  1. Haruka Kato
  2. Atsushi Takizawa

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Abstract

Control of human mobility is one of the most effective measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the imposition of emergency restrictions had significant negative impacts on citizens’ daily lives. As vaccination progresses, we need to consider more effective measures to control the spread of the infection. The research question of this study is as follows: Does the control of home range correlate with a reduction in the number of infected people during the COVID-19 pandemic? This study aims to clarify the correlation between home range and the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ibaraki City. Home ranges are analyzed by the Minimum Convex Polygon method using mobile phone GPS location history data. We analyzed the time series cross-correlation between home range lengths and the number of infected people. Results reveal a slight positive correlation between home range and the number of infected people after one week during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding home range length, the cross-correlation coefficient is 0.4030 even at a lag level of six weeks, which has the most significant coefficient. Thus, a decrease in the home range is a weak factor correlated with a reduction in the number of infected people. This study makes a significant contribution to the literature by evaluating key public health challenges from the perspective of controliing the spread of the COVID-19 infectuion. Its findings has implications for policy makers, practitioners, and urban scientists seeking to promote urban sustainability.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0267335
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.04.07.22273581: (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

    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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The limitation of this study is that we analyzed only the indicator of home range in Ibaraki City. It is necessary to analyze not only the distance traveled using LH data, but also the place of stay using area-based data. The analysis might provide a higher correlation coefficient. Further, due to privacy issues, the discrepancies between samples of the number of infected people and human mobility pose a research challenge. Therefore, it is also necessary to analyze the actual number of infected people and the distance they travel. Moreover, we analyzed data from Ibaraki City, a suburban city, but human mobility in central cities should also be considered in determining the significant factors influencing infection spread. In the future, it is necessary to study different types of cities to examine the correlation between home range and the number of infected people in a Japanese context, such as Osaka City, the more metropolitan capital of the Osaka Prefecture.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.04.07.22273581v1 on medRxiv