Wuhan lockdown led to dramatic cut in global spread of coronavirus, researchers say

Other countries had a marked increase in imported cases from other parts of mainland China in the weeks after the travel limits went into effect, study says

Restrictions also delayed arrival of pathogen in other Chinese cities by nearly three days, another study finds

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Wuhan is slowly emerging from two months of lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:00pm, 3 Apr 2020Updated: 3:58am, 4 Apr 2020

China’s drastic decision to lock down the central city of Wuhan has cut the number of coronavirus cases exported from the country to other parts of the world by more than 75 per cent, according to a study by a team of international scientists

The restrictions also dramatically curbed the number of domestic infections, another team found.

Wuhan, which has been in an unprecedented lockdown since January 23, has recorded zero new infections over the past few days and has only 982 active cases. The city will formally lift all of its travel restrictions next week.

The researchers’ conclusions were reported in two papers published in Science magazine, looking at the impact of the travel ban and other contingency measures imposed in Wuhan, where the virus was first detected.

One study, led by Matteo Chinazzi from the Laboratory for the Modelling of Biological and Socio-technical Systems at Northeastern University in Boston, used a global model of disease transmission to generate possible epidemic scenarios.

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