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Background: Policy changes are often necessary to contain the detrimental impact of epidemics such as those brought about by coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In the earlier phases of the emergence of COVID-19, China was the first to impose strict restrictions on movement (lockdown) on January 23rd, 2020. A strategy whose effectiveness in curtailing COVID-19 was yet to be determined. We, therefore, sought to study the impact of the lockdown in reducing the incidence of COVID-19., Methods: Daily cases of COVID-19 that occurred in China which were registered between January 12th and March 30th, 2020, were extracted from the Johns Hopkins CSSE team COVID-19 ArcGIS® dashboards. Daily cases reported were used as data points in the series. Two interrupted series models were run: one with an interruption point of 23 January 2020 (model 1) and the other with a 14-day deferred interruption point of 6th February (model 2). For both models, the magnitude of change (before and after) and linear trend analyses were measured, and β -coefficients reported with 95% confidence interval (CI) for the precision., Results: Seventy-eight data points were used in the analysis. There was an 11% versus a 163% increase in daily cases in models 1 and 2, respectively, in the preintervention periods ( p ≤ 0.001). Comparing the period immediately following the intervention points to the counterfactual, there was a daily increase of 2,746% ( p < 0.001) versus a decline of 207% ( p = 0.802) in model 2. However, in both scenarios, there was a statistically significant drop in the daily cases predicted for this data and beyond when comparing the preintervention periods and postintervention periods ( p < 0.001)., Conclusion: There was a significant decrease the COVID-19 daily cases reported in China following the institution of a lockdown, and therefore, lockdown may be used to curtail the burden of COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Mooketsi Molefi et al.)

In this paper, deterministic and stochastic models are proposed to study the transmission dynamics of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China. The deterministic model is formulated by a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that is built upon the classical SEIR framework. The stochastic model is formulated by a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) that is derived based on the ODE model with constant parameters. The nonlinear CTMC model is approximated by a multitype branching process to obtain an analytical estimate for the probability of a disease outbreak. The local and global dynamics of the disease are analyzed by using the deterministic model with constant parameters, and the result indicates that the basic reproduction number $ \mathcal{R}&#95;0 $ serves as a sharp disease threshold: the disease dies out if $ \mathcal{R}&#95;0\le 1 $ and persists if $ \mathcal{R}&#95;0 > 1 $. In contrast to the deterministic dynamics, the stochastic dynamics indicate that the disease may not persist when $ \mathcal{R}&#95;0 > 1 $. Parameter estimation and validation are performed to fit our ODE model to the public reported data. Our result indicates that both the exposed and infected classes play an important role in shaping the epidemic dynamics of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. In addition, numerical simulations indicate that a second wave of the ongoing pandemic is likely to occur if the prevention and control strategies are not implemented properly.

At the moment, the shortcomings in the system of responding to crises in the health sector lie in the imperfection of the response order and management mechanisms. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the legal regulation and reflection of public health emergencies in China, as exemplified by the case of 2019 coronavirus. The paper discusses the legal framework for the regulation of emergency situations in public health in China for the period from the end of 2019. The importance of preventing and controlling the epidemic is substantiated, and shortcomings in the work to combat the epidemic are analysed. Particular attention is paid to issues of informing the public and the rule of law in emergency situations in public health. The provisions of the legislation of the People's Republic of China in public health emergencies were also examined. The paper is of practical importance not only for China, but for the entire world in the prevention and control of coronavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, most countries have entered the outbreak period of the novel coronavirus epidemic. This sudden outbreak has caused a huge impact on the global economy, which has intensified the division of globalization and the recession of the global economy. Although the epidemic situation in China has gradually stabilized, the severe situation in the world still inevitably impacts China's economy. Based on the uncertainty of future epidemic, this paper sets up three scenarios to analyze the impact of the epidemic on China's economy. The first is that in June, the epidemic both at home and abroad is under control without rebound; the second is that the domestic epidemic is basically controlled but the foreign situation is not effectively controlled; the third is that the epidemic situation in China has a serious rebound due to the influence of the imported cases from abroad, which destroy the economy again. At the same time, some corresponding guidelines are put forward for the recovery of economy, and to minimize the economic losses as well as accelerate the pace of national economic recovery. In addition, it is believed that these suggestions may have certain reference value to other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new human infectious disease. The etiology for this outbreak is a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Thus far, related research on COVID-19 is still in preliminary stage. This paper summarized the latest outcomes of corresponding study from Chinese centers and clarified the hematopoietic abnormality caused by SARS-CoV-2 and potential mechanism. Lymphopenia was common in the early stage after the onset of COVID-19. A significant decrease was observed in peripheral CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. As the illness progressed, neutrophilia emerged in several cases, and patients with severe critical pulmonary conditions showed higher neutrophils than common type. Thrombocytopenia was resulting from the consumption and/or the reduced production of platelets in damaged lungs. Anemia was not observed notably, but the decrease in hemoglobin was frequent. The activation of monocyte-macrophage system aggravates the immune damage of lung and other tissues, which leads to the increase of D-dimer, prothrombin time, and platelet consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, a new virus (initially called 'Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV' and later renamed to SARS-CoV-2) causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and rapidly spread to other parts of China and other countries around the world, despite China's massive efforts to contain the disease within Hubei. As with the original SARS-CoV epidemic of 2002/2003 and with seasonal influenza, geographic information systems and methods, including, among other application possibilities, online real-or near-real-time mapping of disease cases and of social media reactions to disease spread, predictive risk mapping using population travel data, and tracing and mapping super-spreader trajectories and contacts across space and time, are proving indispensable for timely and effective epidemic monitoring and response. This paper offers pointers to, and describes, a range of practical online/mobile GIS and mapping dashboards and applications for tracking the 2019/2020 coronavirus epidemic and associated events as they unfold around the world. Some of these dashboards and applications are receiving data updates in near-real-time (at the time of writing), and one of them is meant for individual users (in China) to check if the app user has had any close contact with a person confirmed or suspected to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the recent past. We also discuss additional ways GIS can support the fight against infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China caused by SARS-CoV-2 has led to a serious epidemic in China and other countries, resulting in worldwide concern. With active efforts of prevention and control, more and more patients are being discharged. However, how to manage these patients normatively is still challenging. This paper reports an asymptomatic discharged patient with COVID-19 who retested positive for SARS-CoV-2, which arouses concern regarding the present discharge standards of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]