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Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases

BACKGROUND: Identifying hotspots in a pandemic is essential for early containment. In the context of the rapid global dissemination of the Covid-19 pandemic, describing viral infection rates in relation to international air travel early during the pandemic can help inform future public health policy...

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Autores principales: Chokshi, Aastha, DallaPiazza, Michelle, Zhang, Wei Wei, Sifri, Ziad
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33640475
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2021.102004
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author Chokshi, Aastha
DallaPiazza, Michelle
Zhang, Wei Wei
Sifri, Ziad
author_facet Chokshi, Aastha
DallaPiazza, Michelle
Zhang, Wei Wei
Sifri, Ziad
author_sort Chokshi, Aastha
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Identifying hotspots in a pandemic is essential for early containment. In the context of the rapid global dissemination of the Covid-19 pandemic, describing viral infection rates in relation to international air travel early during the pandemic can help inform future public health policy. The objective of this study is to determine whether proximity to an international airport predicted higher infection rates during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States (US). METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the authors examined the incidence of Covid-19 in areas near US international airports in the first weeks after detection of Covid-19 in all 50 states, using publicly available county-level incidence of Covid-19 data. They performed a multiple regression to determine the relative effects of population density and air traffic in the Counties Containing Airports (CCA) and the number of Covid-19 cases, and determined the odds of Covid-19 in CCA compared to the rest of the state. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis revealed that air traffic was significantly correlated with Covid-19 cases during the initial phase of pandemic while population density was not significantly correlated. Three weeks into the pandemic, the pooled odds of Covid-19 cases in CCA was 2.66 (95% CI [2.64, 2.68], p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The counties in the US containing international airports represented initial hotspots for Covid-19 transmission. Early public health containment efforts focused on these areas may help mitigate disease transmission during future similar novel respiratory virus epidemics.
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spelling pubmed-79068552021-02-26 Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases Chokshi, Aastha DallaPiazza, Michelle Zhang, Wei Wei Sifri, Ziad Travel Med Infect Dis Original Article BACKGROUND: Identifying hotspots in a pandemic is essential for early containment. In the context of the rapid global dissemination of the Covid-19 pandemic, describing viral infection rates in relation to international air travel early during the pandemic can help inform future public health policy. The objective of this study is to determine whether proximity to an international airport predicted higher infection rates during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States (US). METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the authors examined the incidence of Covid-19 in areas near US international airports in the first weeks after detection of Covid-19 in all 50 states, using publicly available county-level incidence of Covid-19 data. They performed a multiple regression to determine the relative effects of population density and air traffic in the Counties Containing Airports (CCA) and the number of Covid-19 cases, and determined the odds of Covid-19 in CCA compared to the rest of the state. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis revealed that air traffic was significantly correlated with Covid-19 cases during the initial phase of pandemic while population density was not significantly correlated. Three weeks into the pandemic, the pooled odds of Covid-19 cases in CCA was 2.66 (95% CI [2.64, 2.68], p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The counties in the US containing international airports represented initial hotspots for Covid-19 transmission. Early public health containment efforts focused on these areas may help mitigate disease transmission during future similar novel respiratory virus epidemics. Elsevier Ltd. 2021 2021-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7906855/ /pubmed/33640475 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2021.102004 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Original Article
Chokshi, Aastha
DallaPiazza, Michelle
Zhang, Wei Wei
Sifri, Ziad
Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title_full Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title_fullStr Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title_full_unstemmed Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title_short Proximity to international airports and early transmission of COVID-19 in the United States—An epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
title_sort proximity to international airports and early transmission of covid-19 in the united states—an epidemiological assessment of the geographic distribution of 490,000 cases
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33640475
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2021.102004
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