Moving-average based index to timely evaluate the current epidemic situation after COVID-19 outbreak

Yun-ting He; Hao He; Jing Zhai; Xiao-jin Wang; Bing-shun Wang

The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10. 1101 /2020 was implemented in Wuhan. 3 days later, on January 23, Wuhan city was closed. 2 days later, on January 25, all provinces in China except Tibet triggered a level 1 public health emergency response. As can be seen from figure 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B, the peak of daily new laboratory-confirmed cases in mainland China and Hubei province were on February 9, approximately 14 days (one quarantine observation period) after the public health emergency response, which indicates that the public health measures proved to be effective. The peak in other provinces appeared earlier, approximately on February 5. The possible reason is that the epidemic outside Hubei Province is less serious and easier to control. We can see that the first-grade prevention policy (on January 20) hadn't been carried out until 20 days after the outbreak (on Dec 31). After the SARS epidemic in 2003, Chinas public health system has received attention, but problems that emerged during the initial stage of the COVID-19 epidemic indicated that it still lacks the ability to respond quickly to unexpected infectious diseases and public health emergencies. There is still much room for improvement in the prevention and control system for major public health emergencies (Ding et al. 2020 ).