key: cord-0513621-go442ycb
authors: Zhang, Yi; Tian, Hanwen; Zhang, Yinglong; Geography, Yiping Chen College of; Science, Environmental; University, Northwest Normal; China,; Planning, Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Communications; Co., DesignResearch; Ltd.,; Environment, Institute of Earth; Sciences, Chinese Academy of
title: Is the epidemic spread related to GDP? Visualizing the distribution of COVID-19 in Chinese Mainland
date: 2020-04-09
journal: nan
DOI: nan
sha: 3713412c49a7658abc353c1f63f4ea11419450b9
doc_id: 513621
cord_uid: go442ycb

In December 2019, COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spread to the whole Chinese mainland with the people during the Chinese Spring Festival Travel Rush. As of 19 February 2020, 74576 confirmed cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Chinese Mainland. What kind of cities have more confirmed cases, and is there any relationship between GDP and confirmed cases? In this study, we explored the relationship between the confirmed cases of COVID-19 and GDP at the prefectural-level, found a positive correlation between them. This finding warns high GDP areas should pay more prevention and control efforts when an epidemic outbreak, as they have greater risks than other areas nearby.

between them. This finding warns high GDP areas should pay more prevention and control efforts when an epidemic outbreak, as they have greater risks than other areas nearby.

Keywords epidemic, coronaviruses, GDP, prefectural level At the end of 2019, several unexplained pneumonia cases were found in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The clinical manifestations were mainly fever, combined with symptoms such as dry cough, fatigue, poor breathing, diarrhea, runny nose, and sputum. Some patients experienced dyspnea after one week, a large amount of fibrous exudation in the lungs, and pulmonary fibrosis lesions. In severe cases, they even died of shock (Huang et al., 2020) . In January 2020, researches revealed that a new type of coronavirus caused the pneumonia (WHO, 2020a). In February 2020, The International

Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) officially named the virus SARS-CoV-2, and WHO named pneumonia caused by the virus as COVID-19.

The time of COVID-19 outbreak is at the Chinese Spring Festival Travel Rush (Chunyun). During this time, many people back their hometown for celebrating Spring Festival, and the virus quickly spread from Wuhan to other parts of China with the flow of people. On January 29, 31 provinces in the Chinese mainland launched the first level response mechanism for public health events (the highest). In order to prevent the further spread of the epidemic, the Chinese government decided to begin strict controls on entering and leaving Wuhan from January 23, and since then personnel have rarely continued to flow from Wuhan. As of two incubation cycles since Wuhan was sealed on January 23, that is, Figure 1 shows that there is a significant positive correlation between GDP and confirmed cases in different regions of an epidemic area. According to this finding, the epidemic prevention and control in different economic development areas in one region can be graded. In areas with high economic development level, the epidemic risk is high, and the more active and strict epidemic prevention measures should be taken. Such as: call on the public to reduce the flow as much as possible; do a well in personal protection.

Generally speaking, areas with high economic development have relatively higher flow of people and logistics, which also is a way of transmission for viruses. Therefore, during the epidemic period, we should minimize the flow, reduce the aggregation and prevent the virus from spreading among people. In particular, personal protection is very important to prevent infection, according to China's experience. However, some agencies recommend that healthy people do not wear face masks. But in fact, the role of face masks is mainly to block the virus, not treat the disease. Wearing a mask can prevent outside viruses from entering healthy people. It can also be seen from China's practical experience that wearing face masks has a significant effect on reducing the spread of the virus among people.

In developing areas, the risk of epidemic is lower than that of high economic development areas, but low risk is not without risk.

It is necessary to strengthen the publicity of the people and improve the awareness of prevention. Establish the concept of "if you don't pay attention to viruses, they will pay attention to you", guide the public to do a well personal protection, and isolate the cases early to prevent the epidemic from spreading internally. 

Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan

National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (2020) Daily briefing on novel coronavirus cases in China

WHO (2019) Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

WHO (2020) Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation report-1

WHO (2020) Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation report-47