Variation in COVID-19 outbreaks at the US state and county levels.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to the health and economic prosperity of the world's population. Yet, because not all regions are affected equally, this research aims to understand whether the relative growth rate of the initial outbreak in early 2020 varied significantly between the US states and counties.

Study design

Based on publicly available case data from across the USA, the initial outbreak is statistically modeled as an exponential curve.

Methods

Regional differences are visually compared using geo maps and spaghetti lines. In addition, they are statistically analyzed as an unconditional model (one-way random effects analysis of variance estimated with HLM 7.03); the bias between state- and county-level models is evidenced with d

SUBMITTER: Messner W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7396895 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature