Characterizing COVID-19 Transmission : Incubation Period, Reproduction Rate, and Multiple-Generation Spreading

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

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Author(s)

  • Lin Zhang
  • Jiahua Zhu
  • Xuyuan Wang
  • Juan Yang
  • Xiao-Ke Xu

Related Research Unit(s)

Detail(s)

Original languageEnglish
Article number589963
Journal / PublicationFrontiers in Physics
Volume8
Online published11 Jan 2021
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021

Link(s)

Abstract

Understanding the transmission process is crucial for the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19 spread. This paper contributes to the COVID-19 knowledge by analyzing the incubation period, the transmission rate from close contact to infection, and the properties of multiple-generation transmission. The data regarding these parameters are extracted from a detailed line-list database of 9,120 cases reported in mainland China from January 15 to February 29, 2020. The incubation period of COVID-19 has a mean, median, and mode of 7.83, 7, and 5 days, and, in 12.5% of cases, more than 14 days. The number of close contacts for these cases during the incubation period and a few days before hospitalization follows a log-normal distribution, which may lead to super-spreading events. The disease transmission rate from close contact roughly decreases in line with the number of close contacts with median 0.13. The average secondary cases are 2.10, 1.35, and 2.2 for the first, second, and third generations conditioned on at least one offspring. However, the ratio of no further spread in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations are 26.2, 93.9, and 90.7%, respectively. Moreover, the conditioned reproduction number in the second generation is geometrically distributed. Our findings suggest that, in order to effectively control the pandemic, prevention measures, such as social distancing, wearing masks, and isolating from close contacts, would be the most important and least costly measures.

Research Area(s)

  • close contacts, COVID-19, effective reproduction number, incubation period, spreading tree, superspreading

Citation Format(s)

Characterizing COVID-19 Transmission: Incubation Period, Reproduction Rate, and Multiple-Generation Spreading. / Zhang, Lin; Zhu, Jiahua; Wang, Xuyuan et al.
In: Frontiers in Physics, Vol. 8, 589963, 01.2021.

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

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