Spatial analysis of COVID-19 incidence and its determinants using spatial modeling: A study on India

The first incident of COVID-19 case in India was recorded on 30th January, 2020 which turns to 100,000 marks on May 19th and by June 3rd it was over 200,000 active cases and 5,800 deaths. Geographic Information System (GIS) based spatial models can be helpful for better understanding of different factors that have triggered COVID-19 spread at district level in India. In the present study, 19 variables were considered that can explain the variability of the disease. Different spatial statistical techniques were used to describe the spatial distribution of COVID-19 and identify significant clusters. Spatial lag and error models (SLM and SEM) were employed to examine spatial dependency, geographical weighted regression (GWR) and multi-scale GWR (MGWR) were employed to examine at local level. The results show that the global models perform poorly in explaining the factors for COVID-19 incidences. MGWR shows the best-fit-model to explain the variables affecting COVID-19 (R2= 0.75) with lowest AICc value. Population density, urbanization and bank facility were found to be most susceptible for COVID-19 cases. These indicate the necessity of effective policies related to social distancing, low mobility. Mapping of different significant variables using MGWR can provide significant insights for policy makers for taking necessary actions.