Examining Spatial Relationship between COVID-19 pandemic and Population Density: Muscat, Oman, a case study

Abstract

In the second half of November 2019, the Chinese government officially confirmed the detection of the first case of COVID-19 in Wuhan city. Subsequently, the pandemic began to spread dramatically across the world. By March 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the COVID-19 transmission as a pandemic. The organization recommended world governments to start the lock down procedures. These procedures affected many economies across the globe. The initial impacts focused on the public sector, particularly the public transportation and tourism sectors. Social life was also affected, and work behaviours switched to being online. According to WHO, by mid-January 2022, the number of registered COVID-19 cases reached 346 million infections, and 5.5 million deaths were associated with the pandemic. A large number of scientists from diverse backgrounds and specializations, sought to study this phenomenon and to determine the factors that led to its trending growth and spreading. Geographical features, both natural and human, played a role in this surge. Therefore, this research aims to verify the possible links between population density and epidemic transmission. According to previous studies, this topic is still debatable among scientists. Therefore, this research used two types of density: general density and physiological density combined with GIS tools and statistical analysis to confirm the relations. The results of Parson’s coefficient analysis indicate a clear positive correlation reaching 0.76 when using physiological density. On the other hand, when using general density, the relationship was weak and reached 0.4.