Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Reduce Mortality of Future Infectious Diseases in Society

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the strain of novel coronavirus that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that generates high number of infected cases and deaths worldwide. The fundamental question in this field of research is how countries can reduce fatality rates of COVID-19. This study confronts this question here by developing the first global analysis (based on more than 160 countries), which endeavors to analyze the socioeconomic sources of the reduction of mortality rates of COVID-19 in society. Results suggest that a low average fatality rate of COVID-19 is associated with countries having high level of current health expenditure expressed as a percentage of GDP, high domestic general government health expenditure per capita and a reduced exposure of population to days exceeding safe levels of particulate matter (PM2.5). These findings are important, very important to support an effective strategy to cope with future epidemics similar to COVID-19 that has to be based on high investments in health sector and environmental policy that reduces air pollution in order to be able to minimize fatality rates of future infectious diseases.