Understanding the Spread of COVID-19 in China: Spatial–Temporal Characteristics, Risk Analysis and the Impact of the Quarantine of Hubei Province on the Railway Transportation Network

Abstract

The rapid spread of COVID-19 and its global growth constitutes an international public-health emergency, posing a serious threat to global health, safety, and social economy. In this paper, we systematically studied the temporal and spatial characteristics of COVID-19, infectivity, and the impact of Hubei province’s quarantine on the national railway system on the basis of epidemic and national train data. This study found the following: (1) The overall growth of the epidemic was exponential, and the outbreak of Hubei had a strong spread in the eastern and southern directions. The epidemic was generally more serious in the capital or developed cities in each province, and the epidemic outside Hubei was under control after the imported growth ended. (2) On the basis of analyzing the disturbance of the spread of the epidemic by traffic control, the average incubation period of COVID-19 was approximately 4 days. The ratio of the number of cured people to the number of deaths gradually increased, indicating that, given sufficient medical service, the cure rate can be greatly improved. (3) The quarantine of Hubei had greater impact on cities with higher centrality, especially in the Yangtze River Delta region, and smaller impact on the overall connectivity of the national railway network. For local people, quarantine had great impact on the outflow of local people to neighboring provinces.