34 - The significance of daily incidence and mortality cases due to COVID-19 in some African countries

Abstract

With the current outbreak of COVID-19, the African countries have been on heightened alert to detect and isolate any imported and locally transmitted cases of the disease. It was observed that each of the daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality counts among African countries may not be independent. Result of the Ljung-Box test showed that each of the daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality counts among African countries was not independent, rather both are time-dependent. Analyzing daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality counts over time requires more specialized analytic tools. Trend analysis of daily counts of COVID-19 incidence and deaths is presented over time. Also, generalized estimating equation, a flexible tool for analyzing longitudinal data, is employed to analyze the daily COVID-19 mortality rates in African countries. Findings from this study showed that patterns of incidence cases among African countries are statistically different. There are significant monotone trends in the daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality counts of many countries in Africa. There is a positive weak linear relationship between the daily reported COVID-19 cases and the population of African countries. However, the magnitude of the observed association was particularly small. It was further deduced that the farther the number of days from the day of first incidence if the pandemic is not properly managed, the more the daily COVID-19 mortality rate in Africa.