Background:

On January 23, 2020, China imposed a quarantine on the city of Wuhan to contain the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Regardless of this measure, the new infection has spread to several countries around the world.

Objective:

We developed a method to study the dissemination of this infection by airline routes and provide estimations of the time of arrival of the outbreak to different cities.

Methods:

Using the Kermack and McKendrick model complemented with diffusion on a graph composed of nodes and edges, we made an analysis of COVID-19 dispersion to other cities by air travel.

Results:

The estimation was accurate in that it was possible to predict in the middle of February 2020 the arrival of the first outbreak in Mexico, which eventually occurred between March 20 and 30. This estimation was robust with respect to small changes in epidemiological parameters at the other nodes.

Conclusions:

The estimation of the time of arrival of the outbreak from its epicenter, allows for a time period to implement and strengthen preventive measures aimed at the general population as well as to strengthen hospital infrastructure and training of human resources. In the present study, this estimation was accurate, as observed from the real data of the beginning of the outbreak in Mexico City up to April 6, 2020.

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