Analysis of the Impact of Interprovincial Migration on the First Wave of COVID-19 Transmission in China

ABSTRACT

In the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the epidemic has spread rapidly due to interprovincial migration from Wuhan to Hubei province and to the rest of China. Based on Chinas interprovincial migration and outbreak data, this paper established panel models. The transmission of the first wave of COVID-19 of China can be divided into two stages a phase of national outbreak caused by interprovincial migration and a phase of sustained development due to close contacts. Interprovincial migration triggered a nationwide outbreak that lasted until around 28 January 2020, about 5 days after the Wuhan lockdown. In this phase of transmission, the population inflow from Hubei province was more contagious than the inflow from other provinces. The results also show that the sum of the influence coefficients of interprovincial population inflow is less than 1, which means a state of convergence, indicating that “Wuhan lockdown” is an effective measure to cut off the spread of the epidemic by interprovincial migration.