Demographic Influence on the Effectiveness of England's SARS-CoV-2 Policies

Abstract

Health data is key for the development of medicinal drugs, treatments, and policy-planning to control the spread of infectious diseases. However, the collection, curation, and interpretation of health data is often biased. This paper discusses England-wide impact of public policies to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) infections, based on the recorded per-capita infection cases between July 2020 to January 2023. The analysis presented herewith highlights the disparities across the upper local tier authorities, in the number of Covid-19 cases recorded in response to the policies. This paper further presents the correlation between the Covid-19 cases count and demographic factors, thus identifying the key factors determining the effectiveness of the NHS policies. This in turn highlights the need for incorporating demographic imbalance in the policy planning process. It is concluded that the upper local tier authorities comprise of three clusters of low, mid, and high prevalence of Covid-19 infections. Where the regions with high prevalence of Covid-19 cases are associated with relatively higher proportions of Black/ Mixed racial groups, amongst a mid-range and low internal Migrations.