Where did Wuhan people go during the epidemic?
Using the big data from Baidu Qianxi, which includes daily migration data from ticket purchasing for flights, train and other location-based services (LBS), I analyzed the out-migration of Wuhan people before and during the shutdown during Jan 1 to Feb 3, 2020. The period also includes the Chinese New Year (CNY) when hundreds of millions of people went back home to visit families and friends during the holidays, accelerating the spread of this infectious disease.
Here are the major findings:
1. The top 10 cities for out-migration of Wuhanians are all in Hubei province (where Wuhan is), toppled all provinces in China. During Jan 1-20, more than 50% of out-migrants went to these Hubei cities due to work and families reasons.
2. Starting on Jan 13, there have been increasing number of out-migrants, possibly due to early CNY movement but also those who evacuated from the ongoing virus.
3. Starting on Jan 21 when the news about person-to-person transmission, more people left.
4. On Jan 23, Wuhan shut down and 12 other Hubei cities follow suit. Out-migration dropped slightly to 60%.
5. More people left after Jan 26, up to 80%. Notice that the data is migrant % but not the actual count. According to the Wuhan mayor, about 5+ million people left during this period. The actual count of out-migration after Jan 26 should be less than before due to the shut down despite the higher %.
6. The top 10 out-migration destinations outside of Hubei province include Hunan, Henan and other tourist hotspots like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The out-migration trend in these cities are opposite to Hubei cities in general except Xinyang of Henan, where there might be a lot of migrant workers.
7. While tourists to Chunxin decreased, tourists to Beijing and Shanghai remained the same rate. It is noticeable that tourists to Shenzhen and Gwongzhou increased. On Jan 26, Hong Kong and Macau prohibited the entry of people who traveled to Hubei in the last 14 days, and the out-migration to these cities dropped.
8. If the 60% out-migrant is about 5 million people, then 1% is equivalent to about 80k people. During Jan 23-26, out-migrants from Wuhan increased from the average 0.63% to 1.01%, and those to Guangdong province was about 2.8%. This indicates there could be 200,000+ people went to Guangdong province during this period.
* The original publication in Chinese can be found here.