DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.25062376
title: Is a municipal socio-economic ranking more influential than vaccination on daily growth in COVID-19 infection rate?

description: Numerous studies have attempted to identify potential risk-factors associated with COVID-19 infection, including inter alia: age, diet, higher population density, and the quality and availability of health services. The objective of the current study is to analyze the weight of four covariates on a daily infection rate from SARS-COV2 virus. The method used is regression analysis, where each variable is converted to the standard normal distribution function. Results demonstrate that of the four investigated covariates, vaccination and population size have the highest weights. Given the empirical analysis, the most efficient way to achieve a reduction in the spread of the pandemic is via appropriate vaccination programs. Numerous studies have attempted to identify potential risk-factors associated with COVID-19 infection, including inter alia: age, diet, higher population density, and the quality and availability of health services. The contributions of this article are threefold:
We use a unique method to test the COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness. We follow the COVID-19 infection growth rate in each of the 171 Israeli municipalities, starting from 11 March 2020 (the first documentation of COVID-19 cases) until 21 September 2021, where COVID-19 vaccinations were available starting from 20 December 2020.A unique feature of Israel is the early initiation of a nationwide vaccination campaign, which resulted in the full vaccination (i.e. receipt of two vaccine doses) in more than half the population by the end of March 2021. Consequently, Israel provides an appropriate case study to examine the efficiency of the vaccination.The conventional empirical model uses different units of measurement of each explanatory variable. Unlike previous studies, we estimate a model with identical units of measurement, namely one standard deviation of each independent variable. This target is achieved by normalizing all the variables in the regression model. We use a unique method to test the COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness. We follow the COVID-19 infection growth rate in each of the 171 Israeli municipalities, starting from 11 March 2020 (the first documentation of COVID-19 cases) until 21 September 2021, where COVID-19 vaccinations were available starting from 20 December 2020. A unique feature of Israel is the early initiation of a nationwide vaccination campaign, which resulted in the full vaccination (i.e. receipt of two vaccine doses) in more than half the population by the end of March 2021. Consequently, Israel provides an appropriate case study to examine the efficiency of the vaccination. The conventional empirical model uses different units of measurement of each explanatory variable. Unlike previous studies, we estimate a model with identical units of measurement, namely one standard deviation of each independent variable. This target is achieved by normalizing all the variables in the regression model. Findings suggest vaccination as the factor providing the highest contribution to projected infection growth rate decrease. They stress the high importance of vaccination, and provide further support of vaccination efforts.