QUESTION B1: An Analysis of the spread Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic across countries

Compilation of the COVID-19 epidemic data commenced on the 31st of December 2019. It commenced in Wuhan, China, and as at 14 April 2020, has spread to more than 200 countries worldwide. The worldwide number of confirmed positive cases has surpassed 3 million and the number of deaths has also passed 235,000.

The number of worldwide confirmed COVID-19 positive cases and number of deaths as reported between 31/12/2019 and 10/4/2020 by country is given in COVID19WORLD.xlsx. Source: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19- cases-worldwide

Using the data in sheet ‘Total’ of COVID19WORLD.xlsx answer the following questions.

a. Identify the top 15 countries by ranking the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and draw a bar chart. Comment on the chart. Use an appropriate chart to show the share of the number of confirmed cases in the 15 countries in the world total (combine the rest of the countries as ‘Other’).

b. Identify the top 15 countries by ranking the total number of COVID-19 deaths and draw a bar chart. Comment on the chart. Use an appropriate chart to show the share of the number of deaths in the 15 countries in the world total (combine the rest of the countries as ‘Other’).

c. As the population sizes are different, to compare the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across countries, considering the number of confirmed cases per 1,000,000 persons would provide a better comparison across countries. For the top 15 countries identified in part a, calculate the total number of confirmed cases per 1,000,000 persons. Sort the data from largest to smallest and draw a bar chart of number of confirmed cases per 1,000,000 over countries for the top 15 countries. Comment on the chart and compare it with the bar chart in part a.

d. As the population sizes are different, to compare the number of COVID-19 related deaths across countries, considering the number of deaths per 1,000,000 persons would provide a better comparison across countries. For the top 15 countries identified in part b, calculate the total number of deaths per 1,000,000 persons. Sort the data from largest to smallest and draw a bar chart of number of deaths per 1,000,000 over countries for the top 15 countries. Comment on the chart and compare it with the bar chart in part b.

Using the daily data in sheet ‘Daily Data by country’ of COVID19WORLD.xlsx answer the following questions.

e. Using the daily data for the top 10 countries (top 10 out of the 15 identified in part a), construct individual time series charts of the daily number of confirmed cases over time for the 10 countries. Comment on the distribution of the number of confirmed cases over time and compare the trend across the 10 countries.

f. Using the daily data for the top 10 countries (top 10 out of the 15 identified in part b), construct individual time series charts of the daily number of deaths over time for the 10 countries. Comment on the distribution of the number of deaths over time and compare the trend across the 10 countries.

g. Calculate the growth factor (the ratio of current 5-day average divided by lagged 5-day average) of number of confirmed positive cases for Australia, Brazil, Russia, the UK and the US from 10/3/2020-10/4/2020. [Hint: To calculate the growth factor for 10/3/2020, calculate the current 5-day average (average of 6/3-10/3) and divide by the lagged 5-day average (average of 5/3-9/3). Continue the same by copying the cells for the rest of the days up to 10/4/2020. If a current or lagged average is zero, then the growth factor will be 0.] Draw a time series chart (all five countries in the same plot). Compare the movement of the growth factor during this period across the five countries and identify the successful countries in combating the pandemic. A growth factor less than 1 is considered to show success in combating the virus. The lower the factor the better. More details about the growth factor can be found in https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-10/coronavirus-data-australia-growth-factorcovid-19/12132478

COVID19WORLD