Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China

Yun Qiu; Xi Chen; Wei Shi

We find that the stringent quarantine and public health measures imposed in late January significantly decreased the transmission rate of COVID-19. By early February, the spread of the virus had been contained in China. While many socioeconomic factors moderate the spread of the virus, the actual population flow from the source poses a higher risk to the destination than other factors such as geographic proximity and similarity in economic conditions. Our analysis contributes to the existing literature in two aspects. First, our analysis is connected to the economics and epidemiologic literature on the influencing factors of and ways of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Existing studies find that reductions in interpersonal contact from holiday school closings (Adda, 2016) , reactive school closure (Litvinova et al., 2019) , public transportation strikes (Godzinski and Suarez Castillo, 2019) , strategic targeting of travelers from high-incidence locations (Milusheva, 2017) , and paid sick leave to keep contagious workers at home (Barmby and Larguem, 2009, Pichler and Ziebarth, 2017) can reduce the prevalence of influenza.