Spatial temporal distribution of COVID-19 risk during the early phase of the pandemic in Malawi
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Abstract
COVID-19 has been one of the greatest challenges the world has faced since the second world war. This study aimed at investigating the distribution of COVID-19 in both space and time in Malawi.
Methods
The study used publicly available data of COVID-19 cases for the period from 2 April 2020 to 28 October 2020. Semiparametric spatial temporal models were fitted to the number of monthly confirmed cases as an outcome data, with time and district as independent variables, where district was the spatial unit, while accounting for sociodemographic factors.
Results
The study found significant effects of location and time, with the two interacting. The spatial distribution of COVID-19 risk showed major cities being at greater risk than rural areas. Over time, the COVID-19 risk was increasing then decreasing in most districts with the rural districts being consistently at lower risk. High proportion of elderly people was positively associated with COVID-19 risk (β = 1.272, 95% CI [0.171, 2.370]) than low proportion of elderly people. There was negative association between poverty incidence and COVID-19 risk (β = −0.100, 95% CI [−0.136, −0.065]).
Conclusion
Future or present strategies to limit the spread of COVID-19 should target major cities and the focus should be on time periods that had shown high risk. Furthermore, the focus should be on elderly and rich people.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.12.20192914: (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:The study did not go without weaknesses. The first weakness was that, due to the absence of population size for each area at each time point, the base population at risk for each area was assumed to constant across time which was not practically valid. The other weakness was that the study did not look at future predictions of COVID-19 …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.12.20192914: (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:The study did not go without weaknesses. The first weakness was that, due to the absence of population size for each area at each time point, the base population at risk for each area was assumed to constant across time which was not practically valid. The other weakness was that the study did not look at future predictions of COVID-19 risk beyond the specified period of the study to give an idea how the disease would progress thereafter. This would have important implications particularly on planning activities that had been brought to a halt by COVID-19 like education and football games. Nonetheless, the study gave an overview of the disease dynamics in both space and time in the specified time frame so as to identify hot spots in both space and time for further epidemiological investigations or interventions.
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.
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