Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first arose in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, before spreading rapidly across the rest of the world. In the first weeks following the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outside mainland China, countries in Europe, rather than the nearby Asian nations, suffered from higher case numbers. This was partially due to the rapid and effective measures already in place to control pandemics in Asia, but also due to the differing demographics between the countries – Italy, with one of the oldest populations, showed massive spikes in cases early on.
Now, researchers from New Jersey City University have been attempting to explore the same factors to identify vulnerability in U.S. cities. Their research, under consideration at the journal Scientific Reports, is currently available on the Research Square* preprint server.