Significantly correlation between tourism and COVID-19: evidence from 178 countries and territories.

INTRODUCTION: The high development of tourism is considered a factor that facilitates the global spread of infectious diseases. The association between tourism and the epidemic of coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) remains unclear. METHODOLOGY: We retrieved the data of COVID-19 in 178 countries/territories from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Data on tourism indicators were collected from the World Tourism Organization. We used Spearman's correlation analysis to explore the association between tourism and the epidemic of COVID-19. RESULTS: We find that international tourism expenditure, international tourism receipts, international tourist arrivals, and international tourism exports were significantly correlated with the total number of cases (rs=0.86, rs=0.79, rs=0.80, rs=0.81, respectively), the daily growth of cases of COVID-19 (rs=0.84, rs=0.76, rs=0.78, rs=0.78, respectively), and the number of cases (per million persons) (rs=0.52, rs=0.53, rs=0.36, rs=0.53, respectively) (p < 0.0001 for all), especially in places with high-income. Tourism as percentage of exports was slightly associated with the total number of cases and the daily growth of cases (rs=-0.33, rs=-0.33) (p < 0.0001 for both). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical and public health care providers must realize the potential for the transmission of infections across regions and put more effort to prevent and respond to future infections.

Influence of age and gender on the epidemic of COVID-19 : Evidence from 177 countries and territories-an exploratory, ecological study.

BACKGROUND: The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading worldwide with an uncertain ultimate impact on every aspect of human society. Recognizing the groups with higher susceptibility and fatality are in urgent need. METHODS: We retrieved the total number of confirmed incident and death cases of COVID-19 in 177 countries/territories from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Data of age and gender composition were collected from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Spearman's correlation analysis was used to explore the association between the composition of age and gender and the incidence rate (IRC), case fatality rate (CFRC), and mortality rate of COVID-19 (MRC). Multiple comparisons were adjusted by the Bonferroni method, and the threshold p-value was set as p < 0.01. Software SPSS 23.0, ArcGIS 10.6, and GraphPad Prism 8.0 were used to generate our results. RESULTS: Median age was positively correlated to IRC, CFRC and MRC (rs = 0.60; rs = 0.27; rs = 0.61, p < 0.0001 for all). The age-dependent correlation between people over 65 years of age with IRC was higher in females, while the correlation between age distribution and CFRC as well as MRC was higher in males (p < 0.0001 for all). Besides, we found the age-gender-dependent differences were correlated to IRC in places with high income and associated with CFRC in non-high income countries/territories. CONCLUSION: The correlation between the composition of age and gender and the epidemic characteristics of COVID-19 confirmed previous points that females are more susceptible to COVID-19. The results remind us that more attention should be paid to male patients, particularly those over 65 years old for enhanced clinical management.

More effective strategies are required to strengthen public awareness of COVID-19: Evidence from Google Trends.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed stress on the health and well-being of both Chinese people and the public worldwide. Global public interest in this new issue largely reflects people's attention to COVID-19 and their willingness to take precautionary actions. This study aimed to examine global public awareness of COVID-19 using Google Trends. METHODS: Using Google Trends, we retrieved public query data for terms of "2019-nCoV + SARS-CoV-2 + novel coronavirus + new coronavirus + COVID-19 + Corona Virus Disease 2019" between the 31st December 2019 and the 24th February 2020 in six major English-speaking countries, including the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Dynamic series analysis demonstrates the overall change trend of relative search volume (RSV) for the topic on COVID-19. We compared the top-ranking related queries and sub-regions distribution of RSV about COVID-19 across different countries. The correlation between daily search volumes on the topic related to COVID-19 and the daily number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 was analyzed. RESULTS: The overall search trend of RSV regarding COVID-19 increased during the early period of observing time and reached the first apex on 31st January 2020. A shorter response time and a longer duration of public attention to COVID-19 was observed in public from the USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada, than that in Ireland and New Zealand. A slightly positive correlation between daily RSV about COVID-19 and the daily number of confirmed cases was observed (P < 0.05). People across countries presented a various interest to the RSV on COVID-19, and public awareness of COVID-19 was different in various sub-regions within countries. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that public response time to COVID-19 was different across countries, and the overall duration of public attention was short. The current study reminds us that governments should strengthen the publicity of COVID-19 nationally, strengthen the public's vigilance and sensitivity to COVID-19, inform public the importance of protecting themselves with enough precautionary measures, and finally control the spread of COVID-19 globally.