TY  - JOUR
AU  - Zhang, L
AU  - Tao, Y
AU  - Wang, J
AU  - Ong, JJ
AU  - Tang, W
AU  - Zou, M
AU  - Bai, L
AU  - Ding, M
AU  - Shen, M
AU  - Zhuang, G
AU  - Fairley, CK
Y2  - 2020/11/27
Y1  - 2020/08/01
SN  - 1201-9712
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/11343/252437
AB  - OBJECTIVES: The mostly-resolved first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in China provided a unique opportunity to investigate how the initial characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak predict its subsequent magnitude. METHODS: We collected publicly available COVID-19 epidemiological data from 436 Chinese cities from 16th January-15th March 2020. Based on 45 cities that reported >100 confirmed cases, we examined the correlation between early-stage epidemic characteristics and subsequent epidemic magnitude. RESULTS: We identified a transition point from a slow- to a fast-growing phase for COVID-19 at 5.5 (95% CI, 4.6-6.4) days after the first report, and 30 confirmed cases marked a critical threshold for this transition. The average time for the number of confirmed cases to increase from 30 to 100 (time from 30-to-100) was 6.6 (5.3-7.9) days, and the average case-fatality rate in the first 100 confirmed cases (CFR-100) was 0.8% (0.2-1.4%). The subsequent epidemic size per million population was significantly associated with both of these indicators. We predicted a ranking of epidemic size in the cities based on these two indicators and found it highly correlated with the actual classification of epidemic size. CONCLUSIONS: Early epidemic characteristics are important indicators for the size of the entire epidemic.
LA  - English
PB  - ELSEVIER SCI LTD
T1  - Early characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak predict the subsequent epidemic scope
DO  - 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.122
IS  - International Journal of Infectious Diseases
VL  - 97
SP  - 219-224
L1  - /bitstream/handle/11343/252437/PIIS120197122030429X.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
ER  -