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Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing

Introduction While numerous episodes of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and subsequent government announcements in South Korea were accompanied by widespread social distancing efforts by the people, it is unclear whether these episodes and government announcements were actually influen...

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Autor principal: Park, Jewel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7163336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32313784
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7668
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author Park, Jewel
author_facet Park, Jewel
author_sort Park, Jewel
collection PubMed
description Introduction While numerous episodes of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and subsequent government announcements in South Korea were accompanied by widespread social distancing efforts by the people, it is unclear whether these episodes and government announcements were actually influential in improving social distancing, or whether the level of response among different demographic groups varied. Methods Data were downloaded from Seoul Data Open Plaza, and changes in the number of passengers on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway network between January 1, 2020, and March 31, 2020, were used to assess the extent to which people in Seoul practiced social distancing. Five events regarding COVID-19 that received wide public attention between January and March 2020 were identified and the changes in the number of passengers before and after each event were analyzed. Also, similar analyses were performed for 16 stations that were specific in either the age or purpose of the visit of the passengers. Results Compared to the third week of January 2020 (January 13-19), the mean daily number of passengers in all stations decreased by 2,984,857.4 or 40.6% by the first week of March (March 2-8). The percentage decrease in individual stations between this period was not significantly different between “young” and “old” stations (46.3% vs. 49.2%; p = 0.551) but was significantly smaller in “work” stations than in “leisure” stations (36.2% vs. 51.6%; p = 0.021). Of the five events, the first reported death due to COVID-19 in South Korea and the identification of a mass infection cluster in Daegu on February 20 were accompanied by the greatest decrease of the mean daily number of passengers (1,352,153.3 or 20.8%), while the first mass infection in Seoul on March 10 and the announcement of aggressive social distancing campaign on March 22 were accompanied by an increase in the number of passengers. Conclusions The number of subway passengers in Seoul decreased markedly during late February but slowly increased afterward, suggesting decreasing levels of risk perception and adherence to social distancing. Understanding the differing patterns of subway use by age or purpose of the visit may guide policymakers and the general public in shaping their future response to the current pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-71633362020-04-20 Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing Park, Jewel Cureus Preventive Medicine Introduction While numerous episodes of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and subsequent government announcements in South Korea were accompanied by widespread social distancing efforts by the people, it is unclear whether these episodes and government announcements were actually influential in improving social distancing, or whether the level of response among different demographic groups varied. Methods Data were downloaded from Seoul Data Open Plaza, and changes in the number of passengers on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway network between January 1, 2020, and March 31, 2020, were used to assess the extent to which people in Seoul practiced social distancing. Five events regarding COVID-19 that received wide public attention between January and March 2020 were identified and the changes in the number of passengers before and after each event were analyzed. Also, similar analyses were performed for 16 stations that were specific in either the age or purpose of the visit of the passengers. Results Compared to the third week of January 2020 (January 13-19), the mean daily number of passengers in all stations decreased by 2,984,857.4 or 40.6% by the first week of March (March 2-8). The percentage decrease in individual stations between this period was not significantly different between “young” and “old” stations (46.3% vs. 49.2%; p = 0.551) but was significantly smaller in “work” stations than in “leisure” stations (36.2% vs. 51.6%; p = 0.021). Of the five events, the first reported death due to COVID-19 in South Korea and the identification of a mass infection cluster in Daegu on February 20 were accompanied by the greatest decrease of the mean daily number of passengers (1,352,153.3 or 20.8%), while the first mass infection in Seoul on March 10 and the announcement of aggressive social distancing campaign on March 22 were accompanied by an increase in the number of passengers. Conclusions The number of subway passengers in Seoul decreased markedly during late February but slowly increased afterward, suggesting decreasing levels of risk perception and adherence to social distancing. Understanding the differing patterns of subway use by age or purpose of the visit may guide policymakers and the general public in shaping their future response to the current pandemic. Cureus 2020-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7163336/ /pubmed/32313784 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7668 Text en Copyright © 2020, Park et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Preventive Medicine
Park, Jewel
Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title_full Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title_fullStr Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title_full_unstemmed Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title_short Changes in Subway Ridership in Response to COVID-19 in Seoul, South Korea: Implications for Social Distancing
title_sort changes in subway ridership in response to covid-19 in seoul, south korea: implications for social distancing
topic Preventive Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7163336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32313784
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7668
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