Examining the effect of social distancing on the compound growth rate of COVID-19 at the county level (United States) using statistical analyses and a random forest machine learning model

Public Health
J S Cobb, M A Seale

Abstract

The goal of the present work is to investigate trends among US counties and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) growth rates in relation to the existence of shelter-in-place (SIP) orders in that county. This is a prospective cohort study. Compound growth rates were calculated using cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases from January 21, 2020, to March 31, 2020, in all 3139 US counties. Compound growth was chosen as it gives a single number that can be used in machine learning to represent the speed of virus spread during defined time intervals. Statistical analyses and a random forest machine learning model were used to analyze the data for differences in counties with and without SIP orders. Statistical analyses revealed that the March 16 presidential recommendation (limiting gatherings to ≤10 people) lowered the compound growth rate of COVID-19 for all counties in the US by 6.6%, and the counties that implemented SIP after March 16 had a further reduction of 7.8% compared with the counties that did not implement SIP after March 16. A random forest machine learning model was built to predict compound growth rate after a SIP order and was found to have an accuracy of 92.3%. The random forest found that population, longitude, and p...Continue Reading

Citations

Jan 2, 2021·Frontiers in Public Health·Thiago Henrique Evangelista AlvesStefan Vilges de Oliveira
Dec 17, 2020·JMIR Medical Informatics·Hafsa Bareen SyedaFeliciano Yu
Aug 25, 2020·Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals·H SwapnarekhaBighnaraj Naik
Jun 22, 2021·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·Yi GuoJiang Bian
Jul 3, 2021·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·Vito JankoMitja Luštrek
Aug 18, 2021·Expert Systems with Applications·Muzammil KhanHaider Abbass
Jun 29, 2021·American Journal of Epidemiology·Noah A HaberElizabeth A Stuart

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