Abstract
Background: Identifying hotspots in a pandemic is essential for early containment. In the context of the rapid global dissemination of the Covid-19 pandemic, describing viral infection rates in relation to international air travel early during the pandemic can help inform future public health policy. The objective of this study is to determine whether proximity to an international airport predicted higher infection rates during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States (US).
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the authors examined the incidence of Covid-19 in areas near US international airports in the first weeks after detection of Covid-19 in all 50 states, using publicly available county-level incidence of Covid-19 data. They performed a multiple regression to determine the relative effects of population density and air traffic in the Counties Containing Airports (CCA) and the number of Covid-19 cases, and determined the odds of Covid-19 in CCA compared to the rest of the state.
Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed that air traffic was significantly correlated with Covid-19 cases during the initial phase of pandemic while population density was not significantly correlated. Three weeks into the pandemic, the pooled odds of Covid-19 cases in CCA was 2.66 (95% CI [2.64, 2.68], p < 0.0001).
Conclusions: The counties in the US containing international airports represented initial hotspots for Covid-19 transmission. Early public health containment efforts focused on these areas may help mitigate disease transmission during future similar novel respiratory virus epidemics.
Keywords: Containment; Covid-19; Hotspots; Public health interventions.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Hotspots, Public health interventions, Containment, 【초록키워드】 public health, viral infection, pandemic, cross-sectional, COVID-19 pandemic, Epidemics, Health policy, Transmission, Health, cross-sectional study, respiratory virus, International, Travel, Public health interventions, infection rate, United States, incidence, dissemination, population density, disease transmission, Containment, COVID-19 cases, International airport, COVID-19 transmission, airport, regression analysis, 95% CI, Multiple regression, early phase, help, effort, Multiple regression analysis, Multiple, hotspot, identifying, Effect, Public, mitigate, initial, predicted, performed, examined, significantly, the United State, determine, correlated, Containing, 【제목키워드】 Transmission, International, epidemiological, distribution,