A Retrospective Analysis of the Dynamic Transmission Routes of the COVID-19 in Mainland China

21 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2020 Last revised: 14 Aug 2020

See all articles by Xiandeng Jiang

Xiandeng Jiang

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE)

Le Chang

Australian National University (ANU)

Yanlin Shi

Macquarie University

Date Written: March 1, 2020

Abstract

The fourth outbreak of the Coronaviruses, known as the COVID-19, has occurred in Wuhan city of Hubei province in China in December 2019. We propose a time-varying sparse vector autoregressive (VAR) model to retrospectively analyze and visualize the dynamic transmission routes of this outbreak in mainland China over January 31 - February 19, 2020. Our results demonstrate that the influential inter-location routes from Hubei have become unidentifiable since February 4, 2020, whereas the self-transmission in each provincial-level administrative region (location, hereafter) was accelerating over February 4--15, 2020. From February 16, 2020, all routes became less detectable, and no influential transmissions could be identified on February 18 and 19, 2020. Such evidence supports the effectiveness of government interventions, including the travel restrictions in Hubei. Implications of our results suggest that in addition to the origin of the outbreak, virus preventions are of crucial importance in locations with the largest migrant workers percentages (e.g., Jiangxi, Henan and Anhui) to controlling the spread of COVID-19.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of Interest: All authors agree that there is no competing interest to declare for this paper.

Suggested Citation

Jiang, Xiandeng and Chang, Le and Shi, Yanlin, A Retrospective Analysis of the Dynamic Transmission Routes of the COVID-19 in Mainland China (March 1, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3546741 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3546741

Xiandeng Jiang

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) ( email )

Zhizhi Zone 236, 555 Liutai Avenue
Wenjiang District
Chengdu, Sichuan 611130
China

Le Chang

Australian National University (ANU) ( email )

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601
Australia

Yanlin Shi (Contact Author)

Macquarie University ( email )

North Ryde
Sydney, New South Wales 2109
Australia

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