Electoral processes and COVID-19 infections in Japan
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Abstract
Election campaigns and polling stations might be areas of potential infections; however, it is unknown whether elections can impact the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aimed to evaluate the association between election process and COVID-19 infection in Japan. Quasi-experimental design using time-series COVID-19 cases data with an election intervention. We chose the cities where elections for major and/or city/ward assembly members were held in 2021 January in Japan. The study period for each city spans one weeks before the start date of the election campaign and three weeks after the voting day (36 days). The daily number of patients testing positive for COVID-19. We used Poisson regression analysis with sandwich estimator to evaluate the association between election and the spread of COVID-19 infections. For Miyakojima City, we assessed the relationship between election and COVID-19 infections by using the Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. We also estimated the instantaneous reproduction number (R t ) in the city. There were 17 cities that met the inclusion criteria. In all models with three types of different lag effects (i.e., 4, 9, and 14 days), election was not a significant predictor of COVID-19 infections in the 17 cities. For Miyakojima City, the autoregressive integrated moving average (0, 0, 0) with a lag of 14 (α=14) was the best model. The partial coefficient (ω) of the election was 11.91 (95% confidence interval: 3.10–20.72, P <0.001), indicating that the election was associated with an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases 14 days after the election campaign (mean: 12 cases/day). R t hovered far above 1 during and after the election campaign in Miyakojima. Although elections were associated with an increased number of COVID-19 cases in Miyakojima, this association was not verified in the analysis including all 17 cities. Therefore, if preventive measures prescribed by election guidelines are followed, elections do not necessarily relate to a spread of COVID-19 as long as the election process does not involve activities necessitating close contact.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.13.21258864: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has a few limitations. First, a causal link between elections and COVID-19 cases could not be determined. Second, while we believe our findings are conclusive and has some external validity, the findings are not applicable to countries with different socio-economic statuses or COVID-19 incidence rates. In summary, our data show …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.13.21258864: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has a few limitations. First, a causal link between elections and COVID-19 cases could not be determined. Second, while we believe our findings are conclusive and has some external validity, the findings are not applicable to countries with different socio-economic statuses or COVID-19 incidence rates. In summary, our data show that elections conducted with adequate preventive measures for election campaigns and voting do not necessarily relate to an increased number of COVID-19 cases in areas with similar socio-economic statuses and levels of infection, if activities resulting in close contact are not involved in the election process.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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