Rapid and accurate tracking of aggregate population movement may be epidemiologically informative in outbreak situations. This article describes  a new method developed to accurately track the spread of COVID-19 using population flow data.

Using mobile-phone-data-based counts of 11,478,484 people leaving or passing through Wuhan between 1 January and 24 January 2020, the authors established a new risk assessment model to identify high-risk locales of COVID-19 at an early stage.

This model could serve as a valuable toolkit to public health experts and policy makers in implementing infectious disease control during new outbreaks.