Early days of the pandemic-The association of economic and socio-political country characteristics with the development of the COVID-19 death toll.

ABSTRACT: This article examines cross-national differences in growth of deaths by COVID-19 over time in the first phase of the pandemic, during the time period of 31st December 2019 to 2nd April 2020. We seek to understand and explain country level reaction in the initial period of the pandemic. We explore socio-economic and socio-political country characteristics as determinants of deaths per day and we examine whether country characteristics act as moderating factors for different growth patterns of deaths per day over time. The country characteristics include variables about economy, globalization, health care and demography. We examine data published by the European Center of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in combination with World Bank data and a webscraping approach. Using a conditional

SUBMITTER: Holz M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8407552 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature