The Relationship Between COVID-19 Cases and COVID-19 Testing: a Panel Data Analysis on OECD Countries

Testing, one of the methods to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, is highly recommended in all countries. Empirical studies on how testing relates to the control of new cases will help highlight the importance of testing in efforts to combat the epidemic. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 testing and COVID-19 cases. We use panel autoregressive distributed lag analysis to test the effect of COVID-19 test number on the COVID-19 new cases. The data of the study cover the period from March 19, 2020, to May 01, 2020, for 14 OECD countries. Data were obtained from the https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus website. According to the results, this study shows that increasing the COVID-19 test number will help to reduce new COVID-19 cases. On the other hand, increase in the test number per thousand will probably not contribute to reducing new COVID-19 cases, because countries do not already test by random selection, and even if they do, it will not contribute to detection and isolating of the new cases without identifying risky groups.

COVID-19 infections and fatalities developments: empirical evidence for OECD countries and newly industrialized economies

This paper presents empirical results on coronavirus infection and fatality rates from cross-country regressions for OECD economies and a sample of middle- and high-income countries. We include environmental, economic, medical, and policy variables in our analysis to explain the number of corona cases and deaths per million. We find a significant positive impact of local air pollution on infection rates in the whole sample and on fatality rates for OECD countries. Obesity rates have a positive effect on cases and deaths across the different estimation equations. The strategy of aiming to achieve herd immunity has a significant positive effect on infections as well as on death rates. The first affected countries have significantly higher mortality rates, revealing the lack of experience and medical capacity to deal with the pandemic in an initial phase. Postponing – and fighting - the pandemic could save lives in many countries and generate considerable economic benefits. Other medical and policy variables discussed in the public sphere do not show a significant impact in the regression analysis. Our results suggest that improving air quality and fighting obesity helps reduce the negative effects of a coronavirus pandemic significantly. Policy options for fighting a second epidemic wave should take into account the results from this study in order to optimize global epidemic policy.

Patterns of amenable child mortality over time in 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): evidence from a 15-year time trend analysis (2001-2015)

OBJECTIVES

To analyse the trends of amenable mortality rates (AMRs) in children over the period 2001-2015.

DESIGN

Time trend analysis.

SETTING

Thirty-four member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

PARTICIPANTS

Midyear estimates of the resident population aged ≤14 years.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

Using data from the WHO Mortality Database and Nolte and McKee's list, AMRs were calculated as the annual number of deaths over the population/100 000 inhabitants. The rates were stratified by age groups (<1, 1-4, 5-9 and 10-14 years). All data were summarised by presenting the average rates for the years 2001/2005, 2006/2010 and 2011/2015.

RESULTS

There was a significant decline in children's AMRs in the <1 year group in all 34 OECD countries from 2001/2005 to 2006/2010 (332.78 to 295.17/100 000; %Δ -11.30%; 95% CI -18.75% to -3.85%) and from 2006/2010 to 2011/2015 (295.17 to 240.22/100 000; %Δ -18.62%; 95% CI -26.53% to -10.70%) and a slow decline in the other age classes. The only cause of death that was significantly reduced was conditions originating in the early neonatal period for the <1 year group. The age-specific distribution of causes of death did not vary significantly over the study period.

CONCLUSIONS

The low decline in amenable mortality rates for children aged ≥1 year, the large variation in amenable mortality rates across countries and the insufficient success in reducing mortality from all causes suggest that the heath system should increase its efforts to enhance child survival. Promoting models of comanagement between primary care and subspecialty services, encouraging high-quality healthcare and knowledge, financing universal access to healthcare and adopting best practice guidelines might help reduce amenable child mortality.