Quantifying the Time-Lag Effects of Human Mobility on the COVID-19 Transmission: A Multi-City Study in China

The first wave of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic in China showed there was a lag between the reduction in human mobility and the decline in COVID-19 transmission and this lag was different in cities. A prolonged lag would cause public panic and reflect the inefficiency of control measures. This study aims to quantify this time-lag effect and reveal its influencing socio-demographic and environmental factors, which is helpful to policymaking in controlling COVID-19 and other potential infectious diseases in the future. We combined city-level mobility index and new case time series for 80 most affected cities in China from Jan 17 to Feb 29, 2020. Cross correlation analysis and spatial autoregressive model were used to estimate the lag length and determine influencing factors behind it, respectively. The results show that mobility is strongly correlated with COVID-19 transmission in most cities with lags of 10 days (interquartile range 8 – 11 days) and correlation coefficients of 0.68 ± 0.12. This time-lag is consistent with the incubation period plus time for reporting. Cities with a shorter lag appear to have a shorter epidemic duration. This lag is shorter in cities with larger volume of population flow from Wuhan, higher designated hospitals density and urban road density while economically advantaged cities tend to have longer time lags. These findings suggest that cities with compact urban structure should strictly adhere to human mobility restrictions, while economically prosperous cities should also strengthen other non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the spread of the virus.