In light of the ongoing fight against the spread of COVID-19, the Journal of Population Economics is pleased to be able to offer insight into the factors that affect the transmission of the virus in different country contexts. In issue 33(4), authors Yun Qiu, Xi Chen, and Wei Shi provide important clues about the factors that shape transmission patterns in their open-access article “Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China“.
The article models the local and cross-city transmission of COVID-19 between early January and late February 2020, identifying the role of different socioeconomic mediating factors in shaping transmission patterns. The article also identifies and quantifies the impact of different public health measures on disease incidence, finding that the public health measures taken on national and provincial level may have contributed to the avoidance of over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths between late January and February 2020.
