3.1 COVID-19 first appeared in China I puta tuatahi te KOWHEORI-19 ki Haina
3.1. COVID-19 first appeared in China | I puta tuatahi te KOWHEORI-19 ki Haina
The first recorded case of COVID-19 was in December 2019. It occurred in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in central China. The subsequent outbreak occurred at a critical time of year, one that allowed the disease to spread widely.
Over the period of the Chinese New Year, China celebrates a spring festival, which sees the largest annual human migration. During the Chunyun (or 'Spring transport'), hundreds of millions of people make close to three billion trips to be with family.
In 2020, the Chinese New Year period was between 25 January and 8 February. Migration was rising to its annual peak when Chinese authorities introduced policies on 23 January to minimise the spread of COVID-19. But before this, perhaps in anticipation of a travel ban, there was an *increase* in travel compared with the 2019 Chunyun. Average cross-city daily movements had increased, from 107.1 million to 125.8 million.7 Figure 5 shows the point at which Wuhan went into lockdown.
Figure 5: Travel in China over the 2019 and 2020 Chinese New Year
Baidu travel index, 25 days before and after Chinese New Year
Source: Baidu CNY migrant index, reported by World Economic Forum, '4 charts showing COVID-19's impact on Chinese New Year travel', 12 February 2021, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/02/covid-19-china-chinese-new-year-travel/
Notes: Baidu travel index is based on GPS data from users of its mobile apps. Chinese New Year started on 5 February in 2019, and on 25 January in 2020.
On 23 January, lockdown measures were implemented in Wuhan, with all public transport, including buses, railways, flights and ferry services suspended. Travel plummeted after the travel ban came into place. However, about five million people had already left Wuhan.8 Of these, about a third had travelled to locations outside of Hubei province.
7.Suoyi Tan and others, 'Mobility in China, 2020: a tale of four phases', National Science Review, Volume 8, Issue 11 (November 2021), nwab148.
Sune Lehmann, 'Chunyun versus lockdown', National Science Review, Volume 9, Issue 1 (January 2022), nwab178
8.Simiao Chen and others, 'COVID-19 control in China during mass population movements at New Year', The Lancet, Volume 395, Issue 10226, (2020), pp. 764 – 766.