R. Jaffé, Mabel Patricia Ortiz Vera, K. Jaffe
medRxiv, 2020
Understanding the factors underpinning COVID-19 infection and mortality rates is essential in order to implement actions that help mitigate the current pandemia. Here we evaluate how a suit of 15 climatic and socio-economic variables influence COVID-19 exponential growth-phase infection and mortality rates across 36 countries. We found that imports of goods and services, international tourism and the number of published scientific papers are good predictors of COVID-19 infection rates, indicating that more globalized countries may have experienced multiple and recurrent introductions of the virus. However, high-income countries showed lower mortality rates, suggesting that the consequences of the current pandemia will be worse for globalized low-income countries. International aid agencies could use this information to help mitigate the consequences of the current pandemia in the most vulnerable countries.
Cited by 4 publications.
Field of study: Business