The authors analyze the dynamics of infected and deceased from the coronavirus pandemic over 148 weeks in the «large economies» (24 countries). According to the authors, a large economy is a country that, at least within one year from 1980 to 2019, produced more than 1% of the global GDP. Although the organization of the health care system in these countries is different, only the general requirements of WHO could provide information on the spread of the pandemic in comparable formats. The change from daily data on the number of infected and deceased to weekly data on these indicators (per 1 million persons of the country's population) made it possible, firstly, to exclude insignificant daily fluctuations of these indicators and, secondly, to obtain information in comparable values for countries with widely differing populations.The paper demonstrates that the frequently used comparison of countries by such integral indicators as the number of infected and deceased at a particular time is not very informative. It is due to the fact that, over time, country-specific circumstances change dramatically. Nevertheless, it was precisely the introduction for analytical purposes of such characteristics as weekly increment peaks of infected people and weekly increment peaks of deceased that made it possible to identify the four features. First, the number of those peaks is small for all countries: from 5 to 9 over 148 weeks. Second, these peaks cover between 70 and 90 percent of the totals of the integral number of infected and deceased in a given country. Third, most peaks of the infected are accompanied by peaks of the deceased with some delay: from zero to six weeks, but in most cases by two weeks, which is consistent with clinical observations. Fourth, the peaks of infected people in all 24 countries exhibit the statistical property of being quasi-synchronous (the so-called property of the maximums of these peaks to fall within predetermined intervals of weeks with probabilities that are the same for all countries). This fact is proved using the mathematical homogeneity criterion χ2.
The article discusses specifc issues of the reliability of statistics on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the comparability of similar statistics across different countries. All countries faced challenges, regardless of the level of well-being and social system. However, the examples outlined in the article refer mainly to large economies, each of which for at least one year from 1980 to 2019 produced more than 1% of the global GDP. The organization of the health care system in these countries is different, and only the general requirements of WHO could provide information on the spread of the pandemic in comparable formats.The authors formulated the problems of identifying those infected with Covid-19 and mortality statistics, indicating the various impact of the pandemic on deaths. It has been shown that the formal application of the WHO recommendations to the identifcation of infected persons and differences in the practical use of these recommendations in different countries can give poorly comparable results. The example of Russian statistics illustrates that it is possible to compare the operational data on the mortality of those infected with the coronavirus with the data on the total mortality in the country. Attention is drawn to the example of statistics from Germany, demonstrating the possibility of practical overlapping of the excess mortality rate and the operational data on the mortality of those infected with Covid-19.Data on daily increments of infected, dead, and recovered per million people allows one to see the nature and prevalence rate of the pandemic in different countries in a comparable format. The largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases in some countries in 2020–2021 reached 2–3 thousand per 1 million population, while in others – it was less than 30. In most countries under review, daily deaths' peaks amounted to less than 40 cases, but there were other countries for which these peaks did not exceed 10 cases or less per 1 million population.In conclusion, the report identifes six all-cause mortality factors associated with the pandemic and social distancing demands formulated by the American Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. According to the authors, it would be interesting to learn the experts' assessment of how realistic and benefcial it is to know how to keep track of these factors. It would improve the quality of international comparative analysis of socio-demographic indicators.
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