The outbreak of the COVID-19 has become a worldwide public health challenge for contemporary cities during the background of globalization and planetary urbanization. However, spatial factors affecting the transmission of the disease in urban spaces remain unclear. Based on geotagged COVID-19 cases from social media data in the early stage of the pandemic, this study explored the correlation between different infectious outcomes of COVID-19 transmission and various factors of the urban environment in the main urban area of Wuhan, utilizing the multiple regression model. The result shows that most spatial factors were strongly correlated to case aggregation areas of COVID-19 in terms of population density, human mobility and environmental quality, which provides urban planners and administrators valuable insights for building healthy and safe cities in an uncertain future.
Keywords: COVID-19 transmission; social media data; urban elements; urban planning.