Abstract
The evolution of the pandemic of COVID-19 globally has generated one of the most significant historical events of the 21st Century, with unpredictable consequences to the economy, environment, and world health. Here I compiled data available in databases to examine the levels of infections of 56 countries displaying over 5,000 confirmed cases and calculated the percentage of infection by 100,000 inhabitants. The pattern found revealed a striking difference between Asian and European countries, with much higher infection levels in the later. Countries from Latin America and the Middle East were intermediate. Three factors might have generated the observed pattern: social distancing strategy, genetic factors, and testing level. I conclude that pandemic evolution would be better explained as a multifactorial phenomenon that would be better viewed systemically.
Keywords:
COVID-19; infection; global analysis; social distancing; testing
The image is produced by fluorescence microscopy using DAP, which stains the cell nuclei and is colored in blue. The SARS-Cov-2 particles (green) were stained using antibodies from the serum of an infected COVID-19 patient. Source: picture from ongoing experiment in collaboration with the Phenotypic Screening Platform, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo).
Sources: case numbers were obtained from the website of the Johns Hopkins University (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). Population data were obtained from internet data for populations reported for 2018 and 2019 using data available in the internet.
Sources: case numbers were obtained from the website of the Johns Hopkins University (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). Population data were obtained from internet data for populations reported for 2018 and 2019 using data available in the internet.
Souce: compiled by the author from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing.