Geographic Distribution of COVID-19: Lesson from the First Wave

Abstract

COVID-19 continues to spread fast around world. Clearly, there are huge differences in the spread of COVID-19 from country to country. The paper analyses the spatial and temporal spread of COVID-19 on earth using Kriging spatial interpolation method in ARC GIS. From semi structure interview via online (email, conversation by messenger), existing studies and recent newspaper articles, I deduced that there are number of factors that could affect the spatial distribution of COVID-19 in different countries. These factors seem to be playing a significant role in the variation of transmission rates of COVDI-19 in different countries. To sum up, these could include; timely (or late) government responses, differences in citizen response, global frequent connectivity (due to mostly tourism and trade link), cultural norm, demographic factor (population density, youth/older population), access of public services, availability of protective equipment, the size of samples collected, the availability of testing kits, a lack of accurate data, asymptomatic transmission, metrological factor (temperature, humidity) and geographical isolated location. The paper does not explore any mutation processes or genome information of different countries, which is also important when it comes to spatial distribution by countries, which could vary the spread of the disease from country to country. However, analysis of first wave can be used by government and citizens to prepare and implement local and global measure for second and third wave (Cacciapaglia, Cot and Sannino, 2020).