Growth rate and acceleration analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the effect of public health measures in real time

Yuri Tani Utsunomiya; Adam Taiti Harth Utsunomiya; Rafaela Beatriz Pintor Torrecilha; Silvana Cassia Paulan; Marco Milanesi; Jose Fernando Garcia

The copyright holder for this preprint . 2020. The first red dot marks the midpoint between January 23 rd and 24 th 2020, when a strict cordon sanitaire was imposed to Wuhan, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Hainan. The second red dot pinpoints February 4 th 2020, when the cordon was extended to a larger portion of the eastern part of China. (c) Fitted curves for South Korea between January 20 th and April 2 nd 2020. The red dot is placed between February 20 th and 21 st 2020, when a collection of restrictions to human mobility was imposed, including lockdown of Daegu city, suspension of flights, cancellation of mass gatherings and lockdown of all South Korean military bases. The apparent stationary stage of both countries is in reality classified as linear growth by our framework, since the approximately constant growth rate in this period is larger than the maximum growth rate observed during the lagging stage.