Modelling spatial variations of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19): evidence from a global perspective

• Published in: GeoJournal Vol. 87; no. 4; pp. 3203 - 3217
• Main Authors: Appiah-Otoo, Isaac, Kursah, Matthew Biniyam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Datasets; Environmental Management; Fatalities; Generalized method of moments; Geography; Global perspective; Human Geography; Killing; Pneumonia; Seafood; Seafoods; Social Sciences; Spatial variations; Viral diseases; Viruses; Southeast Asia; Europe; Africa; COVID-19; Coronavirus; Spatial variation; Global pandemics; Novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2)
• ISSN: 0343-2521; 1572-9893
• DOI: 10.1007/s10708-021-10427-0

In late December 2019, strange pneumonia was detected in a seafood market in Wuhan, China which was later termed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization. At present, the virus has spread across 232 countries worldwide killing 2,409,011 as of 17 February 2021 (9:37 CET). Motivated by a recent dataset, knowledge gaps, surge in global cases, and the need to combat the virus spread, this study examined the relationship between COVID-19 confirmed cases and attributable deaths at the global and regional levels. We used a panel of 232 countries (further disaggregated into Africa-49, Americas-54, Eastern Mediterranean-23, Europe-61, Southeast Asia-10, and Western Pacific-35) from 03 January 2020 to 28 November 2020, and the instrumental variable generalized method of moment’s model (IV-GMM) for analysing the datasets. The results showed that COVID-19 confirmed cases at both the global and regional levels have a strong positive effect on deaths. Thus, the confirmed cases significantly increase attributable deaths at the global and regional levels. At the global level, a 1% increase in confirmed cases increases attributable deaths by 0.78%. Regionally, a 1% increase in confirmed cases increases attributable deaths by 0.65% in Africa, 0.90% in the Americas, 0.67% in the Eastern Mediterranean, 0.72% in Europe, 0.88% in Southeast Asia, and 0.52% in the Western Pacific. This study expands the understanding of the relationship between COVID-19 cases and deaths by using a global dataset and the instrumental variable generalized method of moment’s model (IV-GMM) for the analysis that addresses endogeneity and omitted variable issues.