Assessing the Relationship between Social Vulnerability Factors and Covid-19 Cases in America using Regression

Social vulnerability is the negative impact external stresses have on communities. A number of social conditions such as poverty level, population of disabled people, or lack of vehicle access may impact the community’s ability to respond in the event of a disaster. Coronavirus (Covid-19) is an infectious disease that causes respiratory tract infections that may affect the upper or lower section of the respiratory system. A good number of infected people develop little or no symptoms, however, elderly people as well as those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, asthma and others, are at far greater risk of developing severe symptoms which may result in death. This research compares the use of Ordinary Least Squares regression and Geographically Weighted Regression in effectively capturing the relationship between Social Vulnerability Index and Covid 19 cases in USA. It was discovered that GWR is better equipped at understanding the relationship between social vulnerability variables and total covid19 cases across the country because factors or variables that affect the spread of covid vary strongly across counties and states.