Impact of human mobility on the epidemic spread during holidays

COVID-19 has posed formidable challenges as a significant global health crisis. Its complexity stems from factors like viral contagiousness, population density, social behaviors, governmental regulations, and environmental conditions, with interpersonal interactions and large-scale activities being particularly pivotal. To unravel these complexities, we used a modified SEIR epidemiological model to simulate various outbreak scenarios during the holiday season, incorporating both inter-regional and intra-regional human mobility effects into the parameterization scheme. In addition, evaluation metrics were used to evaluate the accuracy of the model simulation by comparing the congruence between simulated results and recorded confirmed cases. The findings suggested that intra-city mobility led to an average surge of 57.35% in confirmed cases of China, while intercity mobility contributed to an average increase of 15.18%. In the simulation for Tianjin, China, a one-week delay in human mobility attenuated the peak number of cases by 34.47% and postponed the peak time by 6 days. The simulation for the United States revealed that human mobility played a more pronounced part in the outbreak, with a notable disparity in peak cases when mobility was considered. This study highlights that while inter-regional mobility acted as a trigger for the epidemic spread, the diffusion effect of intra-regional mobility was primarily responsible for the outbreak. We have a better understanding on how human mobility and infectious disease epidemics interact, and provide empirical evidence that could contribute to disease prevention and control measures.(c) 2023 The Authors. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study used a modified SEIR epidemiological model to examine the impact of human mobility on the spread of COVID-19. The findings showed that intra-city mobility had a significant contribution to the spread of the virus in China, while intercity mobility had a relatively smaller impact. In the simulation for Tianjin, China, a delay in human mobility reduced the peak number of cases and postponed the peak time. The study also highlighted the primary role of intra-regional mobility in the outbreak.