A timely understanding of the spatiotemporal pattern and development trend in the early stages of the of COVID-19 epidemic is highly significant for timely prevention and control. However, under-reporting is commonly prevalent in the early stages of an epidemic. In this paper , confirmed cases of healthcare workers are considered as accurately small samples to analyze the impact of under-reporting on the spatiotemporal distribution of COVID-19 from three perspectives , namely : parameter estimation, spatiotemporal correlation, and spatiotemporal lag. The results show that : (1) the lognormal distribution was the most suitable to describe the evolution of epidemic with time . (2) The estimated peak infection time of the reported cases lags behind the peak infection time of the healthcare worker cases, and the estimated infection time interval of the reported cases is smaller than the infection time interval of the healthcare worker cases. (3) The impact of under-reporting cases on the early stages of the pandemic is greater than that on its later stages, and the impact on the early onset area is greater than that on the late onset area. (4) Although the number of reported cases is lower than the actual number of cases, a high spatial correlation exists between the cumulatively reported cases and healthcare worker cases.
A timely understanding of the spatiotemporal pattern and development trend in the early stages of the of COVID-19 epidemic is critical for timely prevention and control. However, under-reporting is commonly prevalent in the early stages of an epidemic. In this study , confirmed cases of healthcare workers are considered as accurate small samples to analyze the impact of under-reporting on the spatiotemporal distribution of COVID-19 from three perspectives : parameter estimation, spatiotemporal correlation, and spatiotemporal lag. The results show that (1) the lognormal distribution was the most suitable to describe the evolution of epidemic with time ; (2) the estimated peak infection time of the reported cases lagged the peak infection time of the healthcare worker cases, and the estimated infection time interval of the reported cases was smaller than that of the healthcare worker cases. (3) The impact of under-reporting cases on the early stages of the pandemic was greater than that on its later stages, and the impact on the early onset area was greater than that on the late onset area. (4) Although the number of reported cases was lower than the actual number of cases, a high spatial correlation existed between the cumulatively reported cases and healthcare worker cases.
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