Impact of city and residential unit lockdowns on prevention and control of COVID-19

Peng Shao

The Chinese central government implemented lockdown measures in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei Province to quarantine core areas of the COVID-19 outbreak on January 23, 2020. Two weeks later, measures to lock down residential units started to be implemented in most cities in China. However, the virus has spread across national borders to several other countries [7] . After the Chinese government decided to lock down cities in January, questions arose regarding the reasons behind a nationwide lockdown of residential units that was implemented in February, the impact of these measures on the control of COVID-19 dissemination, and whether they could provide any significant information that might help other countries faced with a similar situation. Here, computational experiments were conducted to identify the mechanisms underlying the impact of the lockdown of cities and residential units on the prevention and control of the epidemic.