The COVID-19 mortality rate: A comparison between Middle East and
top-ten most affected countries
Abstract
Although it seems that the COVID-19 is not as fatal as SARS and MERS,
its highly contagious nature have made it a more serious health
concern. This new pandemic has affected all aspects of human life, and
due to the vast diversity in the nations around the world, it is not
possible to adopt a single integrated policy aginst the disease. It is
deemed that the outbreak of the COVID-19 potentially can affect the
geopolitical dynamics of the world. Thus, considering the unique
context of the Middle East, and its impact on many other countries,
here we tried to compare the case fatality rate (CFR), the
disease rate (DR), and the crude death rate (CDR) for all the
countries located in this region with the top-ten most affected until
April 25, 2020. Special attention was also paid to discuss the data
obtained in our study with the existing literature. We aimed to
explain the effect of significant cultural and ideological
differences, the enormous differences among the health systems of the
countries, and the efficacy of the governmental mitigation policies on
the variability of the epidemiological factors among the 25 countries
included in our list. Speed of action in disease control and high level
of testing in Germany, a sizable population of homeless people in the
U.S., the concurrencey of Influenza A, Influenza B, and the COVID-19
in France, a relatively low hospital capacity in the U.K., the numerous
mass demonstrations in Spain, the effect of tough sanctions against
Iran, the high number of tourists traveling to Turkey, the coincidence
of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and COVID-19 in Saudi
Arabia, the complicated military dominance in Egypt, as well as the
effect of religious mass gathering in the Muslim countries were some
factors which helped us to explain our results.