Understanding the Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of a Global Pandemic

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused unprecedented large-scale changes to human dynamics from local to global scale since early 2020. This chapter provides an introduction to this book, which aims at contributing to the literature by focusing on the spatial and temporal dynamics of the global COVID-19 pandemic, with a set of research papers written by scholars from different fields and different parts of the world. The chapters in this book offer various perspectives on the theories/concepts, data, analysis/modeling, and application/policy for studies of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book also offers a unique addition to the Human Dynamics in Smart Cities book series by examining important changes to human dynamics due to a major pandemic.