Globalized low-income countries may experience higher COVID-19 mortality rates

Rodolfo Jaffe; Mabel Patricia Ortiz Vera; Klaus Jaffe

Mortality rates were most strongly associated with electric power consumption and population of age 65 and above (Fig. 4) . It is not surprising to find higher mortality rates in countries with a larger population of older people, since this was already identified as the most susceptible population (Chen et al., 2020) , and a recent analysis also revealed higher mortality in countries with an older population (Dowd et al., 2020) . On the other hand, countries with higher electric power consumption showed lower mortality rates. Since electric power consumption, GDP per capita, government health expenditure, and Human Capital Index were highly correlated (Fig. 5) , these indicators seem to be proxies for country-level wealth and development (Narayan & Prasad, 2008; Jaffe, 2013) . Our findings thus imply that high-income countries are better placed to face this pandemic, probably due to a higher availability of running water and soap, hospital beds, qualified medical personnel and/or technical equipment. In contrast, low-income countries seem more vulnerable to COVID-19 since they are likely to experience higher mortality rates than countries with better and more accessible services.