The effect of inter-city travel restrictions on geographical spread of COVID-19: Evidence from Wuhan, China

Billy J Quilty; Charlie Diamond; Yang Liu; Hamish Gibbs; Timothy W Russell; Christopher I Jarvis; Kiesha Prem; Carl A B Pearson; Samuel J Clifford; Stefan Flasche; Petra Klepac; Rosalind M Eggo; Mark Jit

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . Effect of the cordon sanitaire on outbreaks in other major Chinese cities Due to the volume of outbound travel from Wuhan in Scenario 1, we estimate that sustained local transmission was likely to have already occurred in the four cities in early January, several weeks prior to the introduction of the cordon sanitaire ( Table 2 ). On the date travel restrictions from Wuhan were imposed, local infections were likely to already have reached over 500 in Beijing and Chongqing (Table 3 ). Outbreaks started later and were smaller on the date of the shutdown in Hangzhou and Shenzhen compared to Beijing and Chongqing, which reflects the relative volume of travel from Wuhan ( Figure 2A ). . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.