IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0261725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population density and spreading of COVID-19 in England and Wales

Author

Listed:
  • Jack Sutton
  • Golnaz Shahtahmassebi
  • Haroldo V Ribeiro
  • Quentin S Hanley

Abstract

We investigated daily COVID-19 cases and deaths in the 337 lower tier local authority regions in England and Wales to better understand how the disease propagated over a 15-month period. Population density scaling models revealed residual variance and skewness to be sensitive indicators of the dynamics of propagation. Lockdowns and schools reopening coincided with increased variance indicative of conditions with local impact and country scale heterogeneity. University reopening and December holidays reduced variance indicative of country scale homogenisation which reached a minimum in mid-January 2021. Homogeneous propagation was associated with better correspondence with normally distributed residuals while heterogeneous propagation was more consistent with skewed models. Skewness varied from strongly negative to strongly positive revealing an unappreciated feature of community propagation. Hot spots and super-spreading events are well understood descriptors of regional disease dynamics that would be expected to be associated with positively skewed distributions. Positively skewed behaviour was observed; however, negative skewness indicative of “cold-spots” and “super-isolation” dominated for approximately 8 months during the period of study. In contrast, death metrics showed near constant behaviour in scaling, variance, and skewness metrics over the full period with rural regions preferentially affected, an observation consistent with regional age demographics in England and Wales. Regional positions relative to density scaling laws were remarkably persistent after the first 5–9 days of the available data set. The determinants of this persistent behaviour probably precede the pandemic and remain unchanged.

Suggested Citation

  • Jack Sutton & Golnaz Shahtahmassebi & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Quentin S Hanley, 2022. "Population density and spreading of COVID-19 in England and Wales," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0261725
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261725
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261725&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0261725?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haroldo V Ribeiro & Quentin S Hanley & Dan Lewis, 2018. "Unveiling relationships between crime and property in England and Wales via density scale-adjusted metrics and network tools," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, February.
    2. Haroldo V. Ribeiro & Diego Rybski & Jürgen P. Kropp, 2019. "Effects of changing population or density on urban carbon dioxide emissions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Elizabeth L. Anderson & Paul Turnham & John R. Griffin & Chester C. Clarke, 2020. "Consideration of the Aerosol Transmission for COVID‐19 and Public Health," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(5), pages 902-907, May.
    4. Olivier Finance & Clémentine Cottineau, 2019. "Are the absent always wrong? Dealing with zero values in urban scaling," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(9), pages 1663-1677, November.
    5. Andrea Ascani & Alessandra Faggian & Sandro Montresor, 2021. "The geography of COVID‐19 and the structure of local economies: The case of Italy," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 407-441, March.
    6. Luiz G A Alves & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Ervin K Lenzi & Renio S Mendes, 2013. "Distance to the Scaling Law: A Useful Approach for Unveiling Relationships between Crime and Urban Metrics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-8, August.
    7. Frank Schlosser & Benjamin F. Maier & Olivia Jack & David Hinrichs & Adrian Zachariae & Dirk Brockmann, 2020. "COVID-19 lockdown induces disease-mitigating structural changes in mobility networks," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(52), pages 32883-32890, December.
    8. Luís M A Bettencourt & José Lobo & Deborah Strumsky & Geoffrey B West, 2010. "Urban Scaling and Its Deviations: Revealing the Structure of Wealth, Innovation and Crime across Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-9, November.
    9. Grolemund, Garrett & Wickham, Hadley, 2011. "Dates and Times Made Easy with lubridate," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 40(i03).
    10. Wickham, Hadley, 2011. "The Split-Apply-Combine Strategy for Data Analysis," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 40(i01).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sutton, Jack & Shahtahmassebi, Golnaz & Hanley, Quentin S. & Ribeiro, Haroldo V., 2024. "A heteroscedastic Bayesian generalized logistic regression model with application to scaling problems," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    2. Cardoso, M. & Afonso, L.H.D. & Neli, R.R. & Souza, W.E., 2024. "Simplified model relating blank and null votes to voter turnout from Brazilian state elections results," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 645(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sutton, Jack & Shahtahmassebi, Golnaz & Hanley, Quentin S. & Ribeiro, Haroldo V., 2024. "A heteroscedastic Bayesian generalized logistic regression model with application to scaling problems," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    2. Qingsong He & Lingping Huang & Jing Li, 2022. "Rediscovering the Scaling Law of Urban Land from a Multi-Scale Perspective—A Case Study of Wuhan," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Alves, L.G.A. & Ribeiro, H.V. & Lenzi, E.K. & Mendes, R.S., 2014. "Empirical analysis on the connection between power-law distributions and allometries for urban indicators," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 409(C), pages 175-182.
    4. Yves Bettignies & Joao Meirelles & Gabriela Fernandez & Franziska Meinherz & Paul Hoekman & Philippe Bouillard & Aristide Athanassiadis, 2019. "The Scale-Dependent Behaviour of Cities: A Cross-Cities Multiscale Driver Analysis of Urban Energy Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-20, June.
    5. Wang, Jia & Hu, Jun & Shen, Shifei & Zhuang, Jun & Ni, Shunjiang, 2020. "Crime risk analysis through big data algorithm with urban metrics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 545(C).
    6. Yu Sang Chang & Sung Jun Jo & Yoo-Taek Lee & Yoonji Lee, 2021. "Population Density or Populations Size. Which Factor Determines Urban Traffic Congestion?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.
    7. Andres Gomez-Lievano & Michail Fragkias, 2024. "The benefits and costs of agglomeration: insights from economics and complexity," Papers 2404.13178, arXiv.org.
    8. Lei, Weiqian & Jiao, Limin & Xu, Gang, 2022. "Understanding the urban scaling of urban land with an internal structure view to characterize China’s urbanization," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    9. Luiz G A Alves & Renio S Mendes & Ervin K Lenzi & Haroldo V Ribeiro, 2015. "Scale-Adjusted Metrics for Predicting the Evolution of Urban Indicators and Quantifying the Performance of Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.
    10. Carrie M. Leslie & Alva I. Strand & Elizabeth A. Ross & Giovanni Tolentino Ramos & Eli S. Bridge & Phillip B. Chilson & Christopher E. Anderson, 2021. "Shifting the Balance among the ‘Three Rs of Sustainability:’ What Motivates Reducing and Reusing?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-12, September.
    11. Joao Meirelles & Fabiano L. Ribeiro & Gabriel Cury & Claudia R. Binder & Vinicius M. Netto, 2021. "More from Less? Environmental Rebound Effects of City Size," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-20, April.
    12. Hyunjoo Kim & Nayeong Son & Dahee Jeong & Myungsik Yoo & In Young Choi & Wona Choi & Yeon Woong Chung & Sung Woo Ko & Seonjeong Byun & Sun Im & Da Woon Sim & Jewon Seo & Min-Gyu Kang & Jun Kyu Lee & Y, 2024. "Angiotensin Receptor Blockers and the Risk of Suspected Drug-Induced Liver Injury: A Retrospective Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Record-Based Common Data Model in South Korea," Drug Safety, Springer, vol. 47(7), pages 673-686, July.
    13. Kayla A. Cotterman & Anthony D. Kendall & Bruno Basso & David W. Hyndman, 2018. "Groundwater depletion and climate change: future prospects of crop production in the Central High Plains Aquifer," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 187-200, January.
    14. Lukáš Dvořáček & Martin Horák & Jaroslav Knápek, 2022. "Simulation of Electric Vehicle Charging Points Based on Efficient Use of Chargers and Using Recuperated Braking Energy from Trains," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-28, January.
    15. Anthony Goerzen & Christian Geisler Asmussen & Bo Bernhard Nielsen, 2024. "Global cities, the liability of foreignness, and theory on place and space in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 55(1), pages 10-27, February.
    16. Laha, A. K. & Putatunda, Sayan, 2017. "Travel Time Prediction for Taxi-GPS Data Streams," IIMA Working Papers WP 2017-03-03, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    17. Dolejš Martin & Forejt Michal, 2019. "Franziscean Cadastre in Landscape Structure Research: A Systematic Review," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 131-144, March.
    18. Brandily, Paul & Brébion, Clément & Briole, Simon & Khoury, Laura, 2021. "A poorly understood disease? The impact of COVID-19 on the income gradient in mortality over the course of the pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    19. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Huang, Liqiao & Long, Yin & Chen, Jundong & Yoshida, Yoshikuni, 2023. "Sustainable lifestyle: Urban household carbon footprint accounting and policy implications for lifestyle-based decarbonization," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0261725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.