Impact of COVID-19 pneumonia on population mobility in ethnic minority areas

Abstract

The main channel for the spread of COVID-19 is macro and micro population flow, and population and material flow are important means to promote economic development and ensure people’s living standards, especially for ethnic areas with relatively backward economic development. Based on Baidu migration data, this paper confirms that population flow data has a strong correlation with urban GDP indicators, and quantitatively analyzes the population inflow, population outflow and intra-city population flow in cities in ethnic areas during the new coronavirus epidemic. Influenced by the epidemic, after the Spring Festival in 2020, China’s urban population flow showed a trend of first sharp decline and then a slow upward trend, and the reduction of population outflow and population inflow after the epidemic reflects the limited long-distance population flow in my country, while the increase in urban population flow reflects the post-epidemic population flow. Short-distance mobility increased slightly. The impact of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic on different ethnic regions across the country varies greatly. The northwestern ethnic regions are greatly affected by the epidemic. The average population flow in some cities has dropped by more than 50%, while the impact on the southwestern ethnic regions is relatively small. Analyzing the population flow and economic changes in ethnic areas during the epidemic, and demonstrating the impact of the epidemic in each city will help to formulate more effective prevention and control strategies and poverty alleviation measures for these areas. The analysis results can provide decision-making reference for relevant departments.