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Globalized low-income countries may experience higher COVID-19 mortality rates

Jaffe, R.; Ortiz Vera, M. P.; Jaffe, K.

2020-04-03 infectious diseases
10.1101/2020.03.31.20049122 medRxiv
Show abstract

Understanding the factors underpinning COVID-19 infection and mortality rates is essential in order to implement actions that help mitigate the current pandemic. Here we evaluate how a suit of 15 climatic and socio-economic variables influence COVID-19 exponential growth-phase infection and mortality rates across 36 countries. We found that imports of goods and services, international tourism and the number of published scientific papers are good predictors of COVID-19 infection rates, indicating that more globalized countries may have experienced multiple and recurrent introductions of the virus. However, high-income countries showed lower mortality rates, suggesting that the consequences of the current pandemic will be worse for globalized low-income countries. International aid agencies could use this information to help mitigate the consequences of the current pandemic in the most vulnerable countries.

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