Trends of the COVID-19 dynamics in 2022 and 2023 vs. the population age, testing and vaccination levels.

INTRODUCTION

The population, governments, and researchers show much less interest in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many questions still need to be answered: why the much less vaccinated African continent has accumulated 15 times less deaths per capita than Europe? or why in 2023 the global value of the case fatality risk is almost twice higher than in 2022 and the UK figure is four times higher than the global one?

METHODS

The averaged daily numbers of cases and death per million, case fatality risks were calculated for 34 countries and regions with the use of John Hopkins University (JHU) datasets. Possible linear and non-linear correlations with the averaged daily numbers of tests per thousand , median age of population A, and percentages of vaccinations and boosters were investigated.

RESULTS

Strong correlations between age and and values were revealed. One-year increment in the median age yielded 39.8 increase in values and 0.0799 increase in 2022 (in 2023 these figures are 5.8 and 0.0263, respectively). With decreasing of testing level , the case fatality risk can increase drastically. and values increase with increasing the percentages of fully vaccinated people and boosters, which definitely increase for greater A. After removing the influence of age, no correlations between vaccinations and and values were revealed.

DISCUSSION

The presented analysis demonstrates that age is a pivot factor of visible (registered) part of the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics. Much younger Africa has registered less numbers of cases and death per capita due to many unregistered asymptomatic patients. Of great concern is the fact that COVID-19 mortality in 2023 in the UK is still at least 4 times higher than the global value caused by seasonal flu.