Who Got Infected with COVID-19? A Study of College Students in Wuhan (China)

Changyu Fan, Min Li, Xueyan Li, Miao Zhu and Ping Fu
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Changyu Fan: School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan 430079, China
Min Li: School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan 430079, China
Xueyan Li: School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan 430079, China
Miao Zhu: School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan 430079, China
Ping Fu: School of Sociology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan 430079, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: College students represent a large group of people who frequently travel across regions, which increased their risk of infection and exacerbated the risk of COVID-19 spread throughout China. This study uses survey data from the end of April 2020 to analyze the status of COVID-19-infected cases, the group differences, and influencing factors in college students in Wuhan. The sample size was made up 4355 participants, including 70 COVID-19-infected students. We found that during the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, college students in Wuhan were primarily infected during off-campus events after winter break or infected in their hometowns after leaving Wuhan; the percentage of college students with severe cases was relatively low, and most had mild cases; however, a large proportion of asymptomatic cases may exist; there were significant group differences in gender, age and place of residence; and the risk of infection was closely related to the campus environment, in which the population density and number of faculty and students on campus had a significant impact. The results indicated that the infection of students did not occur at random, thus strengthening student health education and campus management can help curb the spread of COVID-19 among students.

Keywords: COVID-19; college students; time of disease onset; infection status; group differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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