Transmissibility of COVID-19 in 11 major cities in China and its association with temperature and humidity in Beijing Shanghai Guangzhou and Chengdu

摘要

On December 8, 2019, the first case of unexplained pneumonia was officially reported in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in China [ ]. There have been reports of the new coronavirus disease (coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19, named by the World Health Organization on February 11, 2020) since December 2019 [ , ]. As was reported by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the number of confirmed cases had reached 63 851 by February 13, 2020 in China, including 1380 deaths. On the same day, Hubei Province alone totally had 51 986 confirmed cases including 1318 deaths, accounting for 81.4% and 95.5% of the whole country respectively. Among them there were 35 991 confirmed cases and 1016 deaths in Wuhan, accounting for 69.2% and 77.1% of the number in Hubei Province respectively [ ]. The cumulative number of confirmed cases keeps rising, indicating the strong transmissibility of COVID-19, especially in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Therefore, it is of great importance to adopt reasonable indicators to assess the transmission ability of the disease, based on which effective intervention and control measures could be put forward [ , ].