COVID-19 Air Traffic Visualization: By January 31, 2020, at Least 1.5 Daily Infected Passengers Were Originating in China

In this reportof several from a RAND Corporation team examining the role of commercial air travel in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemicestimate the daily rate of virus transmission via air travel from China. By combining COVID-19 case data from Johns Hopkins University with detailed ai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2020
Main Authors: Mouton, Christopher A, Hanson, Russell, Grissom, Adam R, Godges, John P
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
COVID-19
RAND Corporation
Transportation
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:In this reportof several from a RAND Corporation team examining the role of commercial air travel in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemicestimate the daily rate of virus transmission via air travel from China. By combining COVID-19 case data from Johns Hopkins University with detailed air travel data (including each passenger's origin and destination) from the International Air Transport Association, we can use our COVID-19 Air Traffic Visualization (CAT-V) tool to model the global risk of COVID-19 transmissions resulting from commercial air travel. By late January 2020, infections of COVID-19 were likely being exported from China, via commercial air travel, every daybased on China's reported COVID-19 caseload of fewer than 10,000 by January 31, 2020 (see the caveats section). Because China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, this confirmed caseload means that only one in 150,000 residents was officially reported as having the novel coronavirus. When we combine that information with data on air travel to a given country, we can estimate the rate of virus transmission through air travel. For example, more than 1 million people, or more than 32,000 per day, traveled from China to Japan in January 2020. So, the ratio of one in 150,000 Chinese travelers being infected translates to an expected rate of infection exportation to Japan of about one every five days.