Introduction
In late December 2019, clusters of patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology were reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China(Lu et al., 2020). The causative agent has been identified as a novel coronavirus, currently known as SARS-CoV-2, which likely originated from bats, according to the gene sequence(Xu et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2020). The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was of clustering onset(Chen et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2020), and the estimated basic reproductive number R0 ranges from 2.0-4.0(J. T. Wu et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020; Y. Yang et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2020). Complications like acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and cytokine storm might be the reason of high intensive care admission rate and death(Huang et al., 2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a public health emergency of international concern declared by World Health Organization (WHO) on January 30, 2020.
China was confronted with multitude challenges in controlling this highly contagious previously unknown disease. The unprecedented pressure posed on the health care system by the exponential patient growth has caused severe shortage of medical resources in Wuhan and even Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak. And coincidentally, the virus strike happened around the Chinese New Year, a traditional national holiday when millions of Chinese migrate in the country. The virus thus began to spread across the country.
The first-level response to public health emergency in China was promptly started in the nation. The timely and forceful Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism initiated by the State Council, have effectively curbed the spread of the COVID-19 in Wuhan and all of Mainland China.
As of March 26, 2020, there are globally 509,164 confirmed COVID-19 cases (46,484 new) in 199 countries/ territories, with 54 news in Mainland China and 46,367 news outside of China. WHO reported that the outbreak of COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, and in fact, COVID-19 is accelerating its spread around the world. Although countries face different stages of epidemic and have different levels of health care, the world is facing the same challenges. This study aimed to explore the change patterns of prevalence and death toll in Mainland China, and more important, to share the measures and China’s experience to contain the COVID-19.