Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Aug 04, 2020)
Date Submitted: Jul 30, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Global Determinants of Covid-19 Deaths: Lockdown Dates and Social Distancing Measures Mattered
ABSTRACT
The severity of this global pandemic and focus upon its devastating effects upon local communities has tended to be through the media with time series graphics at the national level. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the cross-national differences in the deaths caused by covid-19, and relate that to a range of contextual variables. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to examine the influence that various contextual variables have upon the number of deaths due to covid-19, across the world. Setting Level: This study utilizes data for 125 countries for contextual variables from 1st January 2020 until the 15th June 2020. Participants: This study considers deaths from covid-19. Interventions: DELETED Primary and secondary outcome measures: The contextual variables considered in this study are stringency index, stringency variability, lockdown date, population density, level of airline passengers and country health security index.
Results:
It is shown there is a very strong association between the level of airline passengers and covid-19 deaths. The results from regression analysis conducted in this study show significant positive relationships at the 5% level of statistical significance between Deaths from covid-19 and airline passenger levels and stringency variability; significant negative relationships are revealed for stringency index and lockdown date supporting the notion that lock down and social distancing measures mattered and were effective. The Global health security index and population density did not significantly affect deaths. Conclusion: This study highlights the strong link between a country’s airline passengers and covid-19 deaths and found that the lockdown date and stringency measures had a significant effect upon deaths. The implications of the research is that lockdown and stringency measures implemented by governments around the world worked and mattered. Further, the fact that global health security did not affect deaths may indicate better preparedness required to confront future pandemics. Trial Registration: DELETED
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