A study of the possible factors affecting COVID‐19 spread, severity and mortality and the effect of social distancing on these factors: Machine learning forecasting model

Abstract

Backgrounds SARS‐CoV‐2 is affecting different countries all over the world, with significant variation in infection‐rate and death‐ratio. We have previously shown a presence of a possible relationship between different variables including the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine, average age, gender, and malaria treatment, and the rate of spread, severity and mortality of COVID‐19 disease. This paper focuses on developing machine learning models for this relationship. Methods We have used real‐datasets collected from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to develop a model from China data as the baseline country. From this model, we predicted and forecasted different countries' daily confirmed‐cases and daily death‐cases and examined if there was any possible effect of the variables mentioned above. Results The model was trained based on China data as a baseline model for daily confirmed‐cases and daily death‐cases. This machine learning application succeeded in modelling and forecasting daily confirmed‐cases and daily death‐cases. The modelling and forecasting of viral spread resulted in four different regions; these regions were dependent on the malarial treatments, BCG vaccination, weather conditions, and average age. However, the lack of social distancing resulted in variation in the effect of these factors, for example, double‐humped spread and mortality cases curves and sudden increases in the spread and mortality cases in different countries. The process of machine learning for time‐series prediction and forecasting, especially in the pandemic COVID‐19 domain, proved usefulness in modelling and forecasting the end status of the virus spreading based on specific regional and health support variables. Conclusion From the experimental results, we confirm that COVID‐19 has a very low spread in the African countries with all the four variables (average young age, hot weather, BCG vaccine and malaria treatment); a very high spread in European countries and the USA with no variable (old people, cold weather, no BCG vaccine and no malaria). The effect of the variables could be on the spread or the severity to the extent that the infected subject might not have symptoms or the case is mild and can be missed as a confirmed‐case. Social distancing decreases the effect of these factors.

Public awareness about coronavirus vaccine, vaccine acceptance, and hesitancy

“…Natural immunity and vaccine immunity are likely to play a role in reducing the spread of COVID‐19 and its associated mortality. 23 , 24 , 25 …”

Role of repeating quarantine instructions and healthy practices on COVID‐19 patients and contacted persons to raise their awareness and adherence to quarantine instructions

“…They also follow the WHO and the Ministry of Health during this period to limit the spread of coronavirus infection; and agreed with the media in informing the public about infection and awareness about the quarantine instructions. 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 As the media enters every home and affects people, it is useful to develop the instructions through the media to reach the maximum benefit. 25 …”

“…They also follow the WHO and the Ministry of Health during this period to limit the spread of coronavirus infection; and agreed with the media in informing the public about infection and awareness about the quarantine instructions. [21][22][23][24] As the media enters every home and affects people, it is useful to develop the instructions through the media to reach the maximum benefit. 25 The strength points of this study lie in the adequate assessment of awareness and practices toward COVID-19 which was developed by in-depth personal interviews and follow-up and the application of multi-dimensional measures; in addition to randomisation of the recruited population.…”

Use of Artificial Intelligence for Predicting COVID-19 Outcomes: A Scoping Review

“…The purpose of using the artificial intelligence method was to predict cases, death, mortality, and severity. Since one paper could predict more than one variable, among the 17 papers, seven papers forecasted mortality [1,7,11,[13][14][15]19], five papers forecasted daily report COVID-19 test-positive cases and death cases [4][5][6]12,16], four papers forecasted severity [3,9,17,18], and one paper predicted all of them [20]. Tree-based model was the most common choice, which was used seven times [9,11,12,13,15,16,19].…”

“…Tree-based model was the most common choice, which was used seven times [9,11,12,13,15,16,19]. The neural network method was a new trend, and five papers applied this method [3,4,5,7,20]. Three papers used the regression method [1,6,17].…”