The spatiotemporal transmission dynamics of COVID-19 among multiple regions: a modeling study in Chinese provinces

Current explosive outbreak of COVID-19 around the world is a complex spatiotemporal process with hidden interactions between viruses and humans. This study aims at clarifying the transmission patterns and the driving mechanism that contributed to the COVID-19 prevalence across the provinces of China. Thus, a new dynamical transmission model is established by an ordinary differential system. The model takes into account the hidden circulation of COVID-19 virus among/within humans, which incorporates the spatial diffusion of infection by parameterizing human mobility. Theoretical analysis indicates that the basic reproduction number is a unique epidemic threshold, which can unite infectivity in each region by human mobility and can totally determine whether COVID-19 proceeds among multiple regions. By validating the model with real epidemic data in China, it is found that (1) if without any intervention, COVID-19 would overrun China within three months, resulting in more than 1.1 billion clinical infections and 0.2 billion subclinical infections; (2) high frequency of human mobility can trigger COVID-19 diffusion across each province in China, no matter where the initial infection locates; (3) travel restrictions and other non-pharmaceutical interventions must be implemented simultaneously for disease control; and (4) infection sites in central and east (rather than west and northeast) of China would easily stimulate quick diffusion of COVID-19 in the whole country. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11071-021-07001-1.