The influence of social and economic ties to the spread of COVID-19 in Europe
Ryohei Mogi, Jeroen Spijker
Abstract
Background: By late January 2020, the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) had reached Europe and most European countries had registered cases by March 1. However, the spread of the virus has been uneven in both prevalence and speed of its propagation. Given the role of social factors in the spread of contagious diseases and the known demographic, economic and cultural differences in Europe, we analyse the contribution of such factors in the coronavirus disease COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.Methods: Diagnosed COVID-19 cases from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and the European Social Survey for 20 European countries were used to estimate bivariate associations between cumulative reported case numbers ten-day intervals during March 2020 and ten social, demographic and economic variables. To avoid overfitting, we first reduce these variables to three factors (labelled “socially and economically vibrant”, “high-educated and not aged”, and “densely populated and traditional”) by means of factor analysis before conducting a multiple regression analysis. We also perform a sensitivity analyses using rates and new cases between two time periods.Findings: The socially and economically vibrant factor has a strong and positive association with COVID-19 throughout the study period. The association with the densely populated and traditional factor was initially low but by mid-March similar to the socially and economically vibrant factor.Conclusions: For future influenza-like pandemics where a vaccine is not yet available, early movement restrictions will be especially crucial to curb the spread of such diseases in economically, socially, and culturally vibrant and densely populated countries.