Are COVID-19 Data Reliable? A Quantitative Analysis of Pandemic Data from 182 Countries
| Autor: | Noah Farhadi, Hooshang Lahooti |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Economic growth
business.industry media_common.quotation_subject COVID-19 Context (language use) 02 engineering and technology 01 natural sciences Conformity Benford's law 010104 statistics & probability Geography Quantitative analysis (finance) data analytics forensic Health care Pandemic 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering Global health General Earth and Planetary Sciences 020201 artificial intelligence & image processing Quality (business) 0101 mathematics business Benford’s Law organizational learning General Environmental Science media_common |
| Zdroj: | COVID Volume 1 Issue 1 Pages 13-152 |
| ISSN: | 2673-8112 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/covid1010013 |
| Popis: | When it comes to COVID-19, access to reliable data is vital. It is crucial for the scientific community to use data reported by independent territories worldwide. This study evaluates the reliability of the pandemic data disclosed by 182 countries worldwide. We collected and assessed conformity of COVID-19 daily infections, deaths, tests, and vaccinations with Benford’s law since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It is commonly accepted that the frequency of leading digits of the pandemic data shall conform to Benford’s law. Our analysis of Benfordness elicits that most countries partially distributed reliable data over the past eighteen months. Notably, the UK, Australia, Spain, Israel, and Germany, followed by 22 different nations, provided the most reliable COVID-19 data within the same period. In contrast, twenty-six nations, including Tajikistan, Belarus, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, published less reliable data on the coronavirus spread. In this context, over 31% of countries worldwide seem to have improved reliability. Our measurement of Benfordness moderately correlates with Johns Hopkin’s Global Health Security Index, suggesting that the quality of data may depend on national healthcare policies and systems. We conclude that economically or politically distressed societies have declined in conformity to the law over time. Our results are particularly relevant for policymakers worldwide. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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