IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i12p7439-d841221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Correlation between Population Density and COVID-19 Cases during the Third Wave in Malaysia: Effect of the Delta Variant

Author

Listed:
  • Nuur Hafizah Md Iderus

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Sarbhan Singh Lakha Singh

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Sumarni Mohd Ghazali

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Cheong Yoon Ling

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Tan Cia Vei

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Ahmed Syahmi Syafiq Md Zamri

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Nadhar Ahmad Jaafar

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Qistina Ruslan

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Nur Huda Ahmad Jaghfar

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

  • Balvinder Singh Gill

    (Institute for Medical Research, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Shah Alam 40170, Selangor, Malaysia)

Abstract

In this study, we describe the incidence and distribution of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia at district level and determine their correlation with absolute population and population density, before and during the period that the Delta variant was dominant in Malaysia. Methods: Data on the number of locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in each of the 145 districts in Malaysia, between 20 September 2020 and 19 September 2021, were manually extracted from official reports. The cumulative number of COVID-19 cases, population and population density of each district were described using choropleth maps. The correlation between population and population density with the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in each district in the pre-Delta dominant period (20 September 2020–29 June 2021) and during the Delta dominant period (30 June 2021–19 September 2021) were determined using Pearson’s correlation. Results: COVID-19 cases were strongly correlated with both absolute population and population density (Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) = 0.87 and r = 0.78, respectively). A majority of the districts had higher numbers of COVID-19 cases during the Delta dominant period compared to the pre-Delta period. The correlation coefficient in the pre-Delta dominant period was r = 0.79 vs. r = 0.86 during the Delta dominant period, whereas the pre-Delta dominant population density was r = 0.72, and in the Delta dominant period, r = 0.76. Conclusion: More populous and densely populated districts have a higher risk of transmission of COVID-19, especially with the Delta variant as the dominant circulating strain. Therefore, extra and more stringent control measures should be instituted in highly populated areas to control the spread of COVID-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Nuur Hafizah Md Iderus & Sarbhan Singh Lakha Singh & Sumarni Mohd Ghazali & Cheong Yoon Ling & Tan Cia Vei & Ahmed Syahmi Syafiq Md Zamri & Nadhar Ahmad Jaafar & Qistina Ruslan & Nur Huda Ahmad Jaghfa, 2022. "Correlation between Population Density and COVID-19 Cases during the Third Wave in Malaysia: Effect of the Delta Variant," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-17, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:12:p:7439-:d:841221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/12/7439/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/12/7439/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Ruiqi & Richmond, Peter & Roehner, Bertrand M., 2018. "Effect of population density on epidemics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 510(C), pages 713-724.
    2. David M. Morens & Gregory K. Folkers & Anthony S. Fauci, 2004. "The challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(6996), pages 242-249, July.
    3. Siew Bee Aw & Bor Tsong Teh & Gabriel Hoh Teck Ling & Pau Chung Leng & Weng Howe Chan & Mohd Hamdan Ahmad, 2021. "The COVID-19 Pandemic Situation in Malaysia: Lessons Learned from the Perspective of Population Density," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-21, June.
    4. Kurubaran Ganasegeran & Mohd Fadzly Amar Jamil & Alan Swee Hock Ch’ng & Irene Looi & Kalaiarasu M. Peariasamy, 2021. "Influence of Population Density for COVID-19 Spread in Malaysia: An Ecological Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-12, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohd Radzniwan Abdul Rashid & Sharifah Najwa Syed Mohamad & Ahmad Izzat Ahmad Tajjudin & Nuruliza Roslan & Aida Jaffar & Fathima Begum Syed Mohideen & Faizul Helmi Addnan & Nizam Baharom & Muslimah It, 2023. "COVID-19 Pandemic Fatigue and Its Sociodemographic, Mental Health Status, and Perceived Causes: A Cross-Sectional Study Nearing the Transition to an Endemic Phase in Malaysia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Krzysztof Rząsa & Mateusz Ciski, 2022. "Influence of the Demographic, Social, and Environmental Factors on the COVID-19 Pandemic—Analysis of the Local Variations Using Geographically Weighted Regression," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-26, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amal Najihah Muhamad Nor & Rohazaini Muhammad Jamil & Hasifah Abdul Aziz & Muhamad Azahar Abas & Kamarul Ariffin Hambali & Nor Hizami Hassin & Muhammad Firdaus Abdul Karim & Siti Aisyah Nawawi & Aaina, 2022. "Spatial Distribution of COVID-19 Infected Cases in Kelantan, Malaysia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-14, October.
    2. John M Drake & Tobias S Brett & Shiyang Chen & Bogdan I Epureanu & Matthew J Ferrari & Éric Marty & Paige B Miller & Eamon B O’Dea & Suzanne M O’Regan & Andrew W Park & Pejman Rohani, 2019. "The statistics of epidemic transitions," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, May.
    3. He, Yifan & Zhao, Chen & Zeng, An, 2022. "Ranking locations in a city via the collective home-work relations in human mobility data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 608(P1).
    4. Moshe B Hoshen & Anthony H Burton & Themis J V Bowcock, 2007. "Simulating disease transmission dynamics at a multi-scale level," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 1(1), pages 26-34.
    5. Zhu, Xuzhen & Wang, Ruijie & Wang, Zexun & Chen, Xiaolong & Wang, Wei & Cai, Shimin, 2019. "Double-edged sword effect of edge overlap on asymmetrically interacting spreading dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 515(C), pages 617-624.
    6. Ivan Montiel & Junghoon Park & Bryan W. Husted & Andres Velez-Calle, 2022. "Tracing the connections between international business and communicable diseases," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(8), pages 1785-1804, October.
    7. Deqiao Tian & Tao Zheng, 2015. "Emerging infectious disease: trends in the literature on SARS and H7N9 influenza," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(1), pages 485-495, October.
    8. Alessandro Bitetto & Paola Cerchiello & Charilaos Mertzanis, 2021. "A data-driven approach to measuring epidemiological susceptibility risk around the world," DEM Working Papers Series 200, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Li, Sen & Vanwambeke, Sophie O. & Licoppe, Alain M. & Speybroeck, Niko, 2014. "Impacts of deer management practices on the spatial dynamics of the tick Ixodes ricinus: A scenario analysis," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 276(C), pages 1-13.
    10. Anne Goujon & Fabrizio Natale & Daniela Ghio & Alessandra Conte, 2022. "Demographic and territorial characteristics of COVID-19 cases and excess mortality in the European Union during the first wave," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 533-556, December.
    11. Vijaya Sunder M & Anupama Prashar, 2023. "State and citizen responsiveness in fighting a pandemic crisis: A systems thinking perspective," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 170-193, January.
    12. Kow-Tong Chen, 2022. "Emerging Infectious Diseases and One Health: Implication for Public Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-4, July.
    13. Shujuan Li & Lingli Zhu & Lidan Zhang & Guoyan Zhang & Hongyan Ren & Liang Lu, 2023. "Urbanization-Related Environmental Factors and Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome: A Review Based on Studies Taken in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-20, February.
    14. Gerritse, Michiel, 2022. "COVID-19 transmission in cities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    15. Adetayo Olaniyi Adeniran & Samuel Oluwaseyi Olorunfemi & Feyisola Olajire Akinsehinwa & Taye Mohammed Abdullahi, 2021. "Nexus between urban mobility and the transmission of infectious diseases: evidence from empirical review," Post-Print hal-03583997, HAL.
    16. Lingbo Liu & Yuni Zhong & Siya Ao & Hao Wu, 2019. "Exploring the Relevance of Green Space and Epidemic Diseases Based on Panel Data in China from 2007 to 2016," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-21, July.
    17. Nurhafiza Md Hamzah & Ming-Miin Yu & Kok Fong See, 2021. "Assessing the efficiency of Malaysia health system in COVID-19 prevention and treatment response," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 273-285, June.
    18. Xiaotong Wen & Feiyu Chen & Yixiang Lin & Hui Zhu & Fang Yuan & Duyi Kuang & Zhihui Jia & Zhaokang Yuan, 2020. "Microbial Indicators and Their Use for Monitoring Drinking Water Quality—A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-14, March.
    19. Deqiao Tian & Yunzhou Yu & Yumin Wang & Tao Zheng, 2012. "Comparison of trends in the quantity and variety of Science Citation Index (SCI) literature on human pathogens between China and the United States," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 1019-1027, December.
    20. Huo, Liang’an & Yu, Yue, 2023. "The impact of the self-recognition ability and physical quality on coupled negative information-behavior-epidemic dynamics in multiplex networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:12:p:7439-:d:841221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.