Spread and control of COVID-19 in China and their associations with population movement, public health emergency measures, and medical resources

Songmin Ying; Fei Li; Xinwei Geng; Zhouyang Li; Xufei Du; Haixia Chen; Sisi Chen; Min Zhang; Zhehua Shao; Yinfang Wu; Madiha Zahra Syeda; Fugui Yan; Luanqing Che; Bin Zhang; Jian Lou; Shaobin Wang; Zhengming Chen; Wen Li; Ye Shen; Zhihua Chen; Huahao Shen

Due to the Chinese Lunar New Year travel rush, the COVID-19 epidemic has gradually spread across 52 the country and even worldwide within a limited time frame 11 . In response to the situation, 53 unprecedented measures have been taken by central and local government to contain the outbreak 54 and prevent its further spread across China. On Jan 23 th , the Wuhan City Epidemic Prevention and 55 Control Headquarters announced that all urban buses, subways, ferries, and long-distance passenger 56 operations were suspended, and that the passages of airports and train stations were temporarily 57 closed 12 . Subsequently, major cities within Hubei province started to implement lockdown on Jan 26 th 58 or 27 th , 2020, except the remote Shennongjia Forestry District due to the very limited number of 59 COVID-19 cases. Unfortunately, around five million people had already left Wuhan by then since the 60 emergence of COVID-19 13, 14 . As the situation continued to deteriorate throughout China, the WHO 61 declared it as a global public health emergency on Jan 30 th 2020 15 . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.