Abstract
This paper presents empirical results on coronavirus infection and fatality rates from cross-country regressions for OECD economies and a sample of middle- and high-income countries. We include environmental, economic, medical, and policy variables in our analysis to explain the number of corona cases and deaths per million. We find a significant positive impact of local air pollution on infection rates in the whole sample and on fatality rates for OECD countries. Obesity rates have a positive effect on cases and deaths across the different estimation equations. The strategy of aiming to achieve herd immunity has a significant positive effect on infections as well as on death rates. The first affected countries have significantly higher mortality rates, revealing the lack of experience and medical capacity to deal with the pandemic in an initial phase. Postponing – and fighting - the pandemic could save lives in many countries and generate considerable economic benefits. Other medical and policy variables discussed in the public sphere do not show a significant impact in the regression analysis. Our results suggest that improving air quality and fighting obesity helps reduce the negative effects of a coronavirus pandemic significantly. Policy options for fighting a second epidemic wave should take into account the results from this study in order to optimize global epidemic policy.
Highlights
The coronavirus pandemic is a historical challenge for the world economy – in medical as well as economic and political terms
They can cause great damage, especially when they occur on a large scale, such as the recent coronavirus pandemic and the associated disease known as COVID-19.1 After its emergence in China in December 2019, the disease quickly spread around the whole world
Based on the sample of 104 countries in Table 7, a one week slowing down of the global epidemic would save 183,624 lives if one assumes that the parameter estimated applies to the world economy (3.082 cases/1 million * 7days *7.8 billion world population = 168,277.2, for country details see Table 13 in the Appendix); the 104 countries cover 79% of global output (the global death toll was reported to be 686,703 on August 3, 2020 (WHO 2020f))
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic is a historical challenge for the world economy – in medical as well as economic and political terms. If one is looking for statistical correlations for fatality ratios and medical variables, one should not overlook the potential case of paradoxical mortality linkages: Countries with a high share of cardiovascular patients prior to the corona shock year 2020, for example, are likely to have more intensive care units (ICUs) in hospitals than other countries – this would be of help to such countries in facing the coronavirus epidemic as the overall number of ICUs is higher than in countries with a low share of cardiovascular patients Such a correlation is identified and with the prevalence of diabetes, a similar link could be relevant.
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