Abstract

The present study is designed to predict the global adjusted values for mortality rate and case fatality rate of COVID-19 around the world. This study aims - to investigate some of the predictive factors which may affect the mortality rate and case fatality rate in 100 randomly chosen countries. Material and methods. This research was conducted at the ecological level using data from 100 countries which were chosen randomly. The adjusted values were predicted using beta regression considering predictive factors such as total expenditure on health per capita, expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), life expectancy and the percentage of the population aged over 65 years, hospital beds (per 1000 population), physicians (per 1000 population), nurses (per 1000 population), prevalence of smoking, prevalence of diabetes mellitus, and number of confirmed tests in each country. In the end, applying Monte Carlo simulation, the adjusted values of mortality rate and case fatality rate for the whole world were estimated. Results. The results of this study showed that two factors including percentage of population ages 65 and above (p=0.03) and Total expenditure on health as of GDP (p=0.04) had a statistically significant relationship with the case fatality rate. Moreover, there was a statistically significant relationship between the mortality rate and life expectancy (p=0.02), total expenditure on health per capita (p<0.001), nurses (per 1000 population) (p=0.04), and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (p=0.04). The mortality rate and case fatality rate for the whole world were estimated to be 0.000001 and 0.026, respectively. Conclusion. It seems that what can cause global concern is not the case fatality rate of the disease, but its mortality rate, which is directly related to the health status of a community. The worse the health status of a community, the greater the number of infected people likely to be there, that ultimately increases the mortality rate of the disease in the community. © 2022 by the authors.