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

To identify the areas that are most vulnerable to virus importation, we performed and integrated a series of analyses, by using de-identified and aggregated mobile phone-based population movement data, air passenger itinerary data, and case reports. We defined the potential risk and geographic range of 2019-nCoV virus spread across three scenarios: 1) from the primary city (Wuhan) into other cities in mainland China (31 provincial regions), 2) from high-risk secondary cities into other cities across China, and 3) from high-risk cities in mainland China into cities in other countries or regions during the LNY holiday and the following three months. We also estimated the number of airline travellers likely needing to be quarantined or screened to capture travellers potentially exposed to 2019-nCoV in high-risk cities of mainland China.