Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND PREVENTIVE MEDICINE
Volume 26, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
JAPANESE SOC HYGIENE
DOI: 10.1186/s12199-021-00935-3
Keywords
Geographical disparities; Incubation period; Travel history; Meteorological conditions; COVID-19
Categories
Funding
- Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen [SZSM201812005]
- Shenzhen Fund for Guangdong Provincial High level Clinical Key Specialties [SZGSP012]
- Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund [SZXK033]
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The study revealed geographical disparities in the incubation period of COVID-19 in Shenzhen and Hefei, with significant differences in median incubation periods potentially associated with meteorological conditions.
Background Current studies on the COVID-19 depicted a general incubation period distribution and did not examine whether the incubation period distribution varies across patients living in different geographical locations with varying environmental attributes. Profiling the incubation distributions geographically help to determine the appropriate quarantine duration for different regions. Methods This retrospective study mainly applied big data analytics and methodology, using the publicly accessible clinical report for patients (n = 543) confirmed as infected in Shenzhen and Hefei, China. Based on 217 patients on whom the incubation period could be identified by the epidemiological method. Statistical and econometric methods were employed to investigate how the incubation distributions varied between infected cases reported in Shenzhen and Hefei. Results The median incubation period of the COVID-19 for all the 217 infected patients was 8 days (95% CI 7 to 9), while median values were 9 days in Shenzhen and 4 days in Hefei. The incubation period probably has an inverse U-shaped association with the meteorological temperature. The warmer condition in the winter of Shenzhen, average environmental temperature between 10 degrees C to 15 degrees C, may decrease viral virulence and result in more extended incubation periods. Conclusion Case studies of the COVID-19 outbreak in Shenzhen and Hefei indicated that the incubation period of COVID-19 had exhibited evident geographical disparities, although the pathological causality between meteorological conditions and incubation period deserves further investigation. Methodologies based on big data released by local public health authorities are applicable for identifying incubation period and relevant epidemiological research.
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