Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong.
Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 25;11(1):4699. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84089-w.
COVID-19 reaffirms the vital role of superspreaders in a pandemic. We propose to broaden the research on superspreaders through integrating human mobility data and geographical factors to identify superspreading environment. Six types of popular public facilities were selected: bars, shopping centres, karaoke/cinemas, mega shopping malls, public libraries, and sports centres. A historical dataset on mobility was used to calculate the generalized activity space and space-time prism of individuals during a pre-pandemic period. Analysis of geographic interconnections of public facilities yielded locations by different classes of potential spatial risk. These risk surfaces were weighed and integrated into a "risk map of superspreading environment" (SE-risk map) at the city level. Overall, the proposed method can estimate empirical hot spots of superspreading environment with statistical accuracy. The SE-risk map of Hong Kong can pre-identify areas that overlap with the actual disease clusters of bar-related transmission. Our study presents first-of-its-kind research that combines data on facility location and human mobility to identify superspreading environment. The resultant SE-risk map steers the investigation away from pure human focus to include geographic environment, thereby enabling more differentiated non-pharmaceutical interventions and exit strategies to target some places more than others when complete city lockdown is not practicable.
COVID-19 再次证实了超级传播者在大流行中的重要作用。我们建议通过整合人类流动数据和地理因素来拓宽对超级传播者的研究，以识别超级传播环境。选择了六种流行的公共设施：酒吧、购物中心、卡拉 OK/电影院、大型购物中心、公共图书馆和体育中心。利用历史移动性数据集计算了个人在大流行前期间的广义活动空间和时空棱柱体。对公共设施的地理互联性分析得出了不同潜在空间风险等级的位置。对这些风险表面进行加权，并整合到城市级别的“超级传播环境风险图”（SE-风险图）中。总体而言，所提出的方法可以用统计精度来估计超级传播环境的经验热点。香港的 SE-风险图可以预先识别与酒吧相关传播的实际疾病集群重叠的区域。我们的研究首次结合了设施位置和人类流动数据来识别超级传播环境。由此产生的 SE-风险图使调查从纯粹的人类焦点转向包括地理环境，从而能够在完全封锁城市不可行时，针对某些地方比其他地方采取更具差异化的非药物干预和退出策略。
