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. 2021 May 18;18(10):5350.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18105350.

Continent-Wide Analysis of COVID 19: Total Cases, Deaths, Tests, Socio-Economic, and Morbidity Factors Associated to the Mortality Rate, and Forecasting Analysis in 2020-2021

Muhammad Nauman Zahid  1 , Simone Perna  1
Affiliations

Continent-Wide Analysis of COVID 19: Total Cases, Deaths, Tests, Socio-Economic, and Morbidity Factors Associated to the Mortality Rate, and Forecasting Analysis in 2020-2021

Muhammad Nauman Zahid et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in China in December 2019 and has become a pandemic that resulted in more than one million deaths and infected over 35 million people worldwide. In this study, a continent-wide analysis of COVID-19 cases from 31st December 2019 to 14th June 2020 was performed along with socio-economic factors associated with mortality rates as well as a predicted future scenario of COVID-19 cases until the end of 2020.

Methods: Epidemiological and statistical tools such as linear regression, Pearson's correlation analysis, and the Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model were used in this study.

Results: This study shows that the highest number of cases per million population was recorded in Europe, while the trend of new cases is lowest in Africa. The mortality rates in different continents were as follows: North America 4.57%, Europe 3.74%, South America 3.87%, Africa 3.49%, Oceania and Asia less than 2%. Linear regression analysis showed that hospital beds, GDP, diabetes, and higher average age were the significant risk factors for mortality in different continents. The forecasting analysis since the first case of COVID-19 until 1st January 2021 showed that the worst scenario at the end of 2020 predicts a range from 0 to 300,000 daily new cases and a range from 0 to 16,000 daily new deaths.

Conclusion: Epidemiological and clinical features of COVID-19 should be better defined, since they can play an import role in future strategies to control this pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; continents; deaths; epidemiology; infection; risk factors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Trend of cumulative new cases standardized for population (per million) by continent.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trend of cumulative new deaths standardized for population (per million) by continent.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of cumulative coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests (per thousand) by continent.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mortality rate in percentage by continent.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Forecasting analysis for number of new daily deaths worldwide until 1st January 2021. (b) Forecasting analysis for number of new daily cases worldwide until 1st January 2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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