Foo Fong Ying, Abdul Rahman Nuzlinda, Shaik Abdullah Fauhatuz Zahroh, Abd Naeeim Nurul Syafiah
School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia.
Infect Dis Model. 2024 Feb 8;9(2):387-396. doi: 10.1016/j.idm.2024.01.009. eCollection 2024 Jun.
At the end of the year 2019, a virus named SARS-CoV-2 induced the coronavirus disease, which is very contagious and quickly spread around the world. This new infectious disease is called COVID-19. Numerous areas, such as the economy, social services, education, and healthcare system, have suffered grave consequences from the invasion of this deadly virus. Thus, a thorough understanding of the spread of COVID-19 is required in order to deal with this outbreak before it becomes an infectious disaster. In this research, the daily reported COVID-19 cases in 92 sub-districts in Johor state, Malaysia, as well as the population size associated to each sub-district, are used to study the propagation of COVID-19 disease across space and time in Johor. The time frame of this research is about 190 days, which started from August 5, 2021, until February 10, 2022. The clustering technique known as spatio-temporal clustering, which considers the spatio-temporal metric was adapted to determine the hot-spot areas of the COVID-19 disease in Johor at the sub-district level. The results indicated that COVID-19 disease does spike in the dynamic populated sub-districts such as the state's economic centre (Bandar Johor Bahru), and during the festive season. These findings empirically prove that the transmission rate of COVID-19 is directly proportional to human mobility and the presence of holidays. On the other hand, the result of this study will help the authority in charge in stopping and preventing COVID-19 from spreading and become worsen at the national level.
2019年底，一种名为SARS-CoV-2的病毒引发了冠状病毒病，这种病毒极具传染性，迅速在全球传播。这种新的传染病被称为COVID-19。经济、社会服务、教育和医疗系统等诸多领域都因这种致命病毒的侵袭而遭受了严重后果。因此，为了在这场疫情演变成一场传染性灾难之前加以应对，有必要深入了解COVID-19的传播情况。在本研究中，马来西亚柔佛州92个分区每日报告的COVID-19病例以及与每个分区相关的人口规模，被用于研究COVID-19疾病在柔佛州跨时空的传播情况。本研究的时间范围约为190天，从2021年8月5日开始，至2022年2月10日结束。采用了一种名为时空聚类的聚类技术，该技术考虑了时空度量，以确定柔佛州分区层面上COVID-19疾病的热点地区。结果表明，COVID-19疾病在该州经济中心（新山市区）等人口密集的活跃分区以及节日期间确实出现了激增。这些发现从经验上证明了COVID-19的传播率与人员流动和节假日的存在成正比。另一方面，本研究结果将有助于负责当局在国家层面上阻止和预防COVID-19的传播及恶化。
