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©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Oct 6, 2020; 8(19): 4431-4442
Published online Oct 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i19.4431
Published online Oct 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i19.4431
Global analysis of daily new COVID-19 cases reveals many static-phase countries including the United States potentially with unstoppable epidemic
Cheng Long, Department of Orthopaedics, Sichuan University West China Hospital, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Xin-Miao Fu, College of Life Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, Fujian Province, China
Zhi-Fu Fu, Anxi AIER Eye Hospital (AIER EYE Hospital Group), Anxi 362400, Fujian Province, China
Author contributions: Fu XM conceptually designed the study; Long C organized the data and performed the analyses; Fu ZF drafted the manuscript; and Fu XM made the revision to the manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China , No. 31972918 and No. 31770830 (to Fu XM) .
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Fu Fu, MD, Chief Doctor, Anxi AIER Eye Hospital (AIER EYE Hospital Group), Anxi County, Anxi 362400, Fujian Province, China. fu_zhifu@163.com
Received: June 15, 2020
Peer-review started: June 15, 2020
First decision: June 19, 2020
Revised: June 20, 2020
Accepted: August 27, 2020
Article in press: August 27, 2020
Published online: October 6, 2020
Peer-review started: June 15, 2020
First decision: June 19, 2020
Revised: June 20, 2020
Accepted: August 27, 2020
Article in press: August 27, 2020
Published online: October 6, 2020
Core Tip
Core Tip: Of the 61 most affected countries by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), 12 static-phase countries including the United States were characterized by largely constant numbers of daily new cases in the past over 14 d. Furthermore, these static-phase countries were overall significantly lower in testing density but higher in the level of positive COVID-19 tests than downward countries. These findings suggested that daily new cases (confirmed) in these countries were likely less than daily new infections, resulting in an unstoppable epidemic.