Epidemiological Determinants of COVID-19-Related Patient Outcomes in Different Countries and Plan of Action: A Retrospective Analysis

Abstract

Current development around the pandemic of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents a significant healthcare resource burden threatening to overwhelm the available nationwide healthcare infrastructure. It is essential to consider, especially for resource-limited nations, strategizing the coordinated response to handle this crisis effectively and preparing for the upcoming emergence of calamity caused by this yet-to-know disease entity. Relevant epidemiological data were retrieved from currently available online reports related to COVID-19 patients. The correlation coefficient was calculated by plotting dependant variables - the number of COVID-19 cases and the number of deaths due to COVID 19 on the Y-axis and independent variables - critical-care beds per capita, the median age of the population of the country, the number of COVID-19 tests per million population, population density (persons per square km), urban population percentage, and gross domestic product (GDP) expense on health care - on the X-axis. After analyzing the data, both the fatality rate and the total number of COVID-19 cases were found to have an inverse association with the population density with the variable - the number of cases of COVID-19 - achieving a statistical significance (p-value 0.01). The negative correlation between critical care beds and the fatality rate is well-justified, as intensive care unit (ICU) beds and ventilators are the critical elements in the management of complicated cases. There was also a significant positive correlation between GDP expenses on healthcare by a country and the number of COVID-19 cases being registered (p-value 0.008), although that did not affect mortality (p-value 0.851). This analysis discusses the overview of various epidemiological determinants possibly contributing to the variation in patient outcomes across regions and helps improve our understanding to develop a plan of action and effective control measures in the future.