Global Spread and Socio-Economic Determinants of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic being highly lethal has spread so swiftly across the globe that it has infected more than three million persons across 209 countries within a short time-span of 107 days since January 13, 2020. Given such situation, this paper examines differences across countries in terms of COVID-19 infections, testing and deaths. A novel approach has been developed to examine socio-economic variables that determine a nation’s exposure to COVID-19 infections and deaths. The most important methodological contribution has been to devise an objective criterion for identifying the best and worst performing nations in terms of controlling infection and mortality of human beings. An important finding emerging from the regression analysis establishes the fact that democracy and good governance plays significant role in curtailing mortality rates. But, at the same time, there also takes place a rise in infected patients in the presence of democracy and higher per capita income. These inferences are found to be robust and replicated on subsequent regression analysis of 24.33 million infections by August 27, 2020. The policy implication that results from the analysis is that in the absence of definite treatment (like vaccine), physical/social distancing, masks and hand-hygiene etc. can save humans from infections and mortality.