Assessing spread risk of Wuhan novel coronavirus within and beyond China, January-April 2020: a travel network-based modelling study

Shengjie Lai; Isaac Bogoch; Nick Ruktanonchai; Alexander Watts; Xin Lu; Weizhong Yang; Hongjie Yu; Kamran Khan; Andrew J Tatem

The potential pathway from this local outbreak in Wuhan to a pandemic might involve four steps: i) local transmission in Wuhan (primary city of epidemic); ii) spread from Wuhan to other cities within and beyond China via infected travellers, causing sporadic secondary transmission in these cities (secondary city of epidemic), iii) further spreading from secondary cities with local transmission to other tertiary cities in China and international cities via returning travellers after the LNY holiday; iv) onward transmission across multiple countries and leading to a pandemic. To interrupt the spread, a cordon sanitaire of Wuhan and surrounding cities in Hubei Province has been in place since January 23 rd , 2020, just two days before the LNY's Day. However, significant numbers of people had likely already travelled back to their hometowns for the holiday by this time. According to Wuhan authorities, it is . CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.