Spatiotemporal Study of COVID-19 in Fars Province, Iran, October-November 2020: Establishment of Early Warning System

BACKGROUND: Using time series and spatiotemporal analyses, this study aimed to establish an Early Warning System (EWS) for COVID-19 in Fars province Iran. METHODS: A EWS was conducted on (i) daily basis city-level time series data including 53 554 cases recorded during 18 February–30 September 2020, which were applied to forecast COVID-19 cases during 1 October–14 November 2020, and (ii) the spatiotemporal analysis, which was conducted on the forecasted cases to predict spatiotemporal outbreaks of COVID-19. RESULTS: A total of 55 369 cases were forecasted during 1 October–14 November 2020, most of which (26.9%) occurred in Shiraz. In addition, 65.80% and 34.20% of the cases occurred in October and November, respectively. Four significant spatiotemporal outbreaks were predicted, with the Most Likely Cluster (MLC) occurring in ten cities during 2–22 October (P < 0.001 for all). Moreover, subgroup analysis demonstrated that Zarrindasht was the canon of the epidemic on 6 October (P=0.04). As a part of EWS, the epidemic was triggered from Jahrom, involving the MLC districts in the center, west, and south parts of the province. Then, it showed a tendency to move towards Zarrindasht in the south and progress to Lar in the southernmost part. Afterwards, it simultaneously progressed to Fasa and Sepidan in the central and northwestern parts of the province, respectively. CONCLUSION: EWS, which was established based on the current protocol, alarmed policymakers and health managers on the progression of the epidemic and on where and when to implement medical facilities. These findings can be used to tailor province-level policies to servile the ongoing epidemic in the area; however, governmental level effort is needed to control the epidemic at a larger scale in the future.