Understanding small Chinese cities as COVID-19 hotspots with an urban epidemic hazard index.

ABSTRACT: Multiple small- to middle-scale cities, mostly located in northern China, became epidemic hotspots during the second wave of the spread of COVID-19 in early 2021. Despite qualitative discussions of potential social-economic causes, it remains unclear how this unordinary pattern could be substantiated with quantitative explanations. Through the development of an urban epidemic hazard index (EpiRank) for Chinese prefectural districts, we came up with a mathematical explanation for this phenomenon. The index is constructed via epidemic simulations on a multi-layer transportation network interconnecting local SEIR transmission dynamics, which characterizes intra- and inter-city population flow with a granular mathematical description. Essentially, we argue that these highlighted small towns po

SUBMITTER: Li T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8290012 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature