Pattern of COVID-19 infection and death across countries: A pilot study

Asem, Noha; Ramadan, Ahmed; Hassany, Mohamed; Ghazy, Ramy Mohamed; Abdallah, Mohamed; Gamal, Eman M.; Hassan, Shaimaa; Kamal, Nehal; Ibrahim, Mohamed; Zaid, Hala

BACKGROUND: This work aimed to identify the mathematical model and ecological pattern of COVID-19 infection and mortality across different countries during the first six months of the pandemic. METHODOLOGY: In this pilot study, authors used the online available data sources of randomly selected 18 countries to collect ecological predictors of COVID-19 transmissibility and mortality. The studied determinants were environmental factors (daily average temperature, daily humidity) and socioeconomic attributes (population age structure, count and density, human development index, per capita income (PCI), gross domestic product, internet coverage, mobility trends, chronic diseases). Researchers used the linear and exponential time series analysis, and further utilize multivariate techniques to explain the variance in the monthly exponential growth rates of new cases and deaths. RESULT: In the first two months, the R(2) of linear models for the cases and deaths were higher than that of the corresponding R(2) of the exponential model. Later one, R(2) of the exponential model was occasionally relatively higher than that of the linear models. The exponential growth rate of new cases was significantly associated with mobility trends (β=0.00398, P=0.002), temperature (β=0.000679, P=0.011), humidity (β=0.000249, P=0.000), and the proportion of patients aged above 65 years (β=-0.000959, P=0.012). Similarly, the exponential growth rate of deaths was significantly associated with mobility trends (β=0.0027, P=0.049), temperature (β=0.0014, P<0.001), humidity (β=-0.0026, P=0.000), and PCI of countries. During this period, COVID-19 transmissibility was evident to be controlled as soon as social mobility is decreased by about 40% of the baseline over 3 months controlling for the other predictors. CONCLUSION: Controlling of COVID-19 pandemic is based mainly on controlling social mobility. Role of environmental determinants like temperature and humidity was well noticed on disease fatality and transmissibility. COVID-19 contagiousness and fatality were additionally affected by human modifiable risk factors like income and non-modifiable risk factors (ageing) affected.