Linking key intervention timings to rapid declining effective reproduction number to quantify lessons against COVID-19

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is currently under a global pandemic trend. The efficiency of containment measures and epidemic tendency of typical countries should be assessed. In this study, the efficiency of prevention and control measures in China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan was assessed, and the COVID-19 epidemic tendency among these countries was compared. Results showed that the effective reproduction number(Re) in Wuhan, China increased almost exponentially, reaching a maximum of 3.98 before a lockdown and rapidly decreased to below 1 due to containment and mitigation strategies of the Chinese government. The Re in Italy declined at a slower pace than that in China after the implementation of prevention and control measures. The Re in Iran showed a certain decline after the establishment of a national epidemic control command, and an evident stationary phase occurred because the best window period for the prevention and control of the epidemic was missed. The epidemic in Japan and South Korea reoccurred several times with the Re fluctuating greatly. The epidemic has hardly rebounded in China due to the implementation of prevention and control strategies and the effective enforcement of policies. Other countries suffering from the epidemic could learn from the Chinese experience in containing COVID-19.

Influence of Meteorological Factors on the COVID-19 Transmission with Season and Geographic Location

“…According to the China government report and the published studies, the implementation of these measures effectively limited the spread of COVID-19 [ 18 , 32 , 34 , 35 ]. Until now, R 0 , the basic reproductive rate indicating the transmissibility of novel coronavirus, is below 1 [ 36 , 37 ]. The death toll is less than 5000 [ 34 ].…”

Current understanding of the influence of environmental factors on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, persistence, and infectivity

“…The recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a public health emergency of international concern in the real sense. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease known to be caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (Peng et al 2020 ; Siddiqui et al 2020a ). On 31st December 2019, China was the first country who notifies WHO about the occurrence of this disease in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China (China CDC 2020 ; WHO 2020a ).…”

Past, present, and future of COVID-19: a review

“…Social isolation is extremely efficient in flattening the curve of the disease but it is unsustainable in the long run. Identifying, by massive molecular testing, asymptomatic and presypmtomatic carriers that are contacts of index symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 RNA positive cases, is clearly the strategy that reduces the rate of new infections while allowing the relaxation of containment measures ( 70 ).…”