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Article: The impact of mass gatherings on the local transmission of COVID-19 and the implications for social distancing policies: Evidence from Hong Kong.

TitleThe impact of mass gatherings on the local transmission of COVID-19 and the implications for social distancing policies: Evidence from Hong Kong.
Authors
Issue Date1-Feb-2023
PublisherPublic Library of Science
Citation
PLoS ONE, 2023, v. 18, n. 2 How to Cite?
Abstract

Mass gatherings provide conditions for the transmission of infectious diseases and pose complex challenges to public health. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and health experts called for suspension of gatherings in order to reduce social contact via which virus is transmitted. However, few studies have investigated the contribution of mass gatherings to COVID-19 transmission in local communities. In Hong Kong, the coincidence of the relaxation of group gathering restrictions with demonstrations against the National Security Law in mid-2020 raised concerns about the safety of mass gatherings under the pandemic. Therefore, this study examines the impacts of mass gatherings on the local transmission of COVID-19 and evaluates the importance of social distancing policies. With an aggregated dataset of epidemiological, city-level meteorological and socioeconomic data, a Synthetic Control Method (SCM) is used for constructing a 'synthetic Hong Kong' from over 200 Chinese cities. This counterfactual control unit is used to simulate COVID-19 infection patterns (i.e., the number of total cases and daily new cases) in the absence of mass gatherings. Comparing the hypothetical trends and the actual ones, our results indicate that the infection rate observed in Hong Kong is substantially higher than that in the counterfactual control unit (2.63% vs. 0.07%). As estimated, mass gatherings increased the number of new infections by 62 cases (or 87.58% of total new cases) over the 10-day period and by 737 cases (or 97.23%) over the 30-day period. These findings suggest the necessity of tightening social distancing policies, especially the prohibition on group gathering regulation (POGGR), to prevent and control COVID-19 outbreaks.


Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331667
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.9
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.839
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorZhu, Pengyu-
dc.contributor.authorTan, Xinying-
dc.contributor.authorWang, Mingshu-
dc.contributor.authorGuo, Fei-
dc.contributor.authorShi, Shuai-
dc.contributor.authorLi, Zhizhao-
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-21T06:57:50Z-
dc.date.available2023-09-21T06:57:50Z-
dc.date.issued2023-02-01-
dc.identifier.citationPLoS ONE, 2023, v. 18, n. 2-
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331667-
dc.description.abstract<p>Mass gatherings provide conditions for the transmission of infectious diseases and pose complex challenges to public health. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and health experts called for suspension of gatherings in order to reduce social contact via which virus is transmitted. However, few studies have investigated the contribution of mass gatherings to COVID-19 transmission in local communities. In Hong Kong, the coincidence of the relaxation of group gathering restrictions with demonstrations against the National Security Law in mid-2020 raised concerns about the safety of mass gatherings under the pandemic. Therefore, this study examines the impacts of mass gatherings on the local transmission of COVID-19 and evaluates the importance of social distancing policies. With an aggregated dataset of epidemiological, city-level meteorological and socioeconomic data, a Synthetic Control Method (SCM) is used for constructing a 'synthetic Hong Kong' from over 200 Chinese cities. This counterfactual control unit is used to simulate COVID-19 infection patterns (i.e., the number of total cases and daily new cases) in the absence of mass gatherings. Comparing the hypothetical trends and the actual ones, our results indicate that the infection rate observed in Hong Kong is substantially higher than that in the counterfactual control unit (2.63% vs. 0.07%). As estimated, mass gatherings increased the number of new infections by 62 cases (or 87.58% of total new cases) over the 10-day period and by 737 cases (or 97.23%) over the 30-day period. These findings suggest the necessity of tightening social distancing policies, especially the prohibition on group gathering regulation (POGGR), to prevent and control COVID-19 outbreaks.<br></p>-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science-
dc.relation.ispartofPLoS ONE-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.titleThe impact of mass gatherings on the local transmission of COVID-19 and the implications for social distancing policies: Evidence from Hong Kong.-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0279539-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85147317673-
dc.identifier.volume18-
dc.identifier.issue2-
dc.identifier.eissn1932-6203-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000966633900001-
dc.identifier.issnl1932-6203-

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