Related Articles Global epidemiology of coronavirus disease 2019 disease incidence daily cumulative index mortality and their association with country healthcare resources and economic status Int J Antimicrob Agents 2020 Mar 18 105946 Authors Lai CC Wang CY Wang YH Hsueh SC Ko WC Hsueh PR Abstract It has been 2 months since the first case of coronavirus disease 2019 COVID 19 was reported in Wuhan So far COVID 19 has affected 84 503 patients in 57 countries territories and caused 2 924 deaths in nine countries However the epidemiology data differ across countries Although China had higher morbidity and mortality than other sites the number of new cases per day in China is lesser than that outside of China since February 26 2020 The incidence ranged from 61 4 per 1 000 000 people in Republic of Korea to 0 0002 per 1 000 000 people in India The daily cumulative index DCI of COVID 19 cumulative cases no of days between the first reported case and February 29 2020 was greatest in China 1 320 85 per day followed by Republic of Korea 78 78 per day Iran 43 11 per day and Italy 30 62 per day However the DCI in other countries territories were less than 10 per day Several effective measures including restricting travel from China controlling the distribution of masks extensive investigation of COVID 19 spread and at once daily press conference by government to inform and educate people were aggressively conducted in Taiwan This is probably the reason why there was only 39 cases as of February 29 2020 with a DCI of 1 case per day in Taiwan which was much lower than that of nearby countries such as Republic of Korea and Japan Additionally the incidence and mortality were correlated with DCI However further study and continued monitoring are needed to better understand the underlying mechanism of COVID 19 PMID 32199877 PubMed as supplied by publisher