Abstract
This article examines cross-national differences in growth of deaths by COVID-19 over time in the first phase of the pandemic, during the time period of 31st December 2019 to 2nd April 2020. We seek to understand and explain country level reaction in the initial period of the pandemic. We explore socio-economic and socio-political country characteristics as determinants of deaths per day and we examine whether country characteristics act as moderating factors for different growth patterns of deaths per day over time. The country characteristics include variables about economy, globalization, health care and demography. We examine data published by the European Center of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in combination with World Bank data and a webscraping approach. Using a conditional growth model specified as a multilevel regression model with deaths by COVID-19 per day as the outcome variable, we show that economic variables are not significantly associated with decrease or increase of deaths by COVID-19. In contrast, variables about national health care mitigate the impact of the pandemic. Demography shows expected effects with an increase of growth of deaths in countries with a higher percentage of people older than 65 years. Globalization predicts the death toll as well: Social interaction between people is deadly on a short-term scale (in the form of tourism). Our results mirror frequent demands for global investment in national health systems.
Highlights
The recent pandemic of Corona Virus (COVID-19) comes with extraordinary challenges for all countries and residents all over the world
We look at effects of economic factors, global contacts, health factors, and socio-demographic factors
The paper follows an explorative approach guided by two research questions: Firstly, analyzing factors affecting growth over time: Which country characteristics are associated with an increase or decrease of deaths per day caused by COVID-19 in the initial wave? Secondly, do country characteristics moderate the positive or negative growth of deaths per day? The last question is essential for the analysis of country differences during the pandemic, since this means we are asking whether economic or socio-political country characteristics play a crucial role in the increase or decrease of deaths per day
Summary
The recent pandemic of Corona Virus (COVID-19) comes with extraordinary challenges for all countries and residents all over the world. We want to contribute to the question of which socio-economic and socio-political characteristics of countries are associated with deaths per day caused by COVID-19 at the very beginning of the pandemic. Crucial to our question is how infection activity, in the form of deaths, behaves in the initial period of the pandemic with respect to quantifiable metrics of a country. This analysis offers a general image on pandemic. The paper follows an explorative approach guided by two research questions: Firstly, analyzing factors affecting growth over time: Which country characteristics are associated with an increase or decrease of deaths per day caused by COVID-19 in the initial wave? We examine data published by the European Center of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in combination with World Bank data and a webscraping approach
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