Quentin De Larochelambert, Andy Marc, Juliana Antero, Eric Le Bourg, Jean-François Toussaint: Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation, in: Frontiers in Public Health, Vol. 8, Artikel 604339, November 2020.
The context of this article is the severe limitation of human development by the Covid 19 pandemic. The authors observed a common dynamic, but also that its propagation was not homogeneous over each continent. The authors’ purpose was to characterize the non-viral parameters that were most strongly associated with the death rate.
To do so, they tested major indices from five domains (demography, public health, economy, politics, environment) and their potential associations with Covid-19 mortality during the first 8 months of 2020 through Principal Component Analysis and a correlation matrix with a Pearson correlation test. Data of all countries or states in federal countries showing at least 10 fatality cases were retrieved from official public sites. For countries that had not yet finished the first epidemic phase, a prospective model has been calculated to provide options of death rates evolution.
As results, higher covid death rates were observed in the [25/65◦] latitudes and in the [-35/-125◦] longitudes. The national criteria most strongly associated with mortality rates are (a) life expectancy and its slowdown, (b) the public health context (burden of metabolic diseases and non-communicable diseases (NCD1) versus prevalence of infectious diseases), (c) the economy (growth of social product, financial support), and (d) the environment (temperature, UV index). The severity of the measures taken to control the pandemic, including lockdown, did not appear to be associated with the mortality rate.
The authors concluded that high-income countries that already experienced a stagnation or regression of life expectancy, with high income and NCD rates, had the highest price to pay. This burden was not alleviated by more stringent public policy decisions. Inherent factors predetermined covid-19 mortality: understanding them may improve prevention strategies by increasing population resilience through better physical fitness and immunity.
Link to article as PDF file on Frontiers in Public Health website.
Link to article on Frontiers in Public Health website.