Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Graduate School of Public Health, St. Luke's International University, OMURA Susumu and Mieko Memorial, St. Luke's Center for Clinical Academia, 5th Floor 3-6-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045, Japan.
Toshima Hospital, 33-1 Sakaecho, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 4;11(1):3109. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-81806-3.
The international spread of COVID-19 infection has attracted global attention, but the impact of local or domestic travel restriction on public transportation network remains unclear. Passenger volume data for the domestic public transportation network in Japan and the time at which the first confirmed COVID-19 case was observed in each prefecture were extracted from public data sources. A survival approach in which a hazard was modeled as a function of the closeness centrality on the network was utilized to estimate the risk of importation of COVID-19 in each prefecture. A total of 46 prefectures with imported cases were identified. Hypothetical scenario analyses indicated that both strategies of locking down the metropolitan areas and restricting domestic airline travel would be equally effective in reducing the risk of importation of COVID-19. While caution is necessary that the data were limited to June 2020 when the pandemic was in its initial stage and that no other virus spreading routes have been considered, domestic travel restrictions were effective to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on public transportation network in Japan. Instead of lockdown that might seriously damage the economy, milder travel restrictions could have the similar impact on controlling the domestic transmission of COVID-19.
新冠病毒在全球的传播引起了全球关注，但目前仍不清楚当地或国内旅行限制对公共交通网络的影响。本研究从公共数据源中提取了日本国内公共交通网络的客流量数据以及每个县首次观察到新冠确诊病例的时间。利用网络接近中心度作为函数来对风险进行建模的生存方法来估计每个县新冠病毒输入的风险。总共确定了 46 个有输入病例的县。假设情景分析表明，封锁大都市地区和限制国内航空公司旅行这两种策略在降低新冠病毒输入风险方面同样有效。虽然需要谨慎的是，数据仅限于 2020 年 6 月，当时大流行处于初期，且没有考虑其他病毒传播途径，但国内旅行限制对于防止日本公共交通网络上新冠病毒的传播是有效的。与可能严重损害经济的封锁措施相比，更温和的旅行限制可能对控制新冠病毒在国内的传播具有相似的影响。
