Question

You are informed that there is empirical evidence that developed countries have much higher rates of COVID-19 infection than developing countries. A researcher informs you that this is a very strong and significant evidence on the negative causal relationship between economic development and infection rates. a- Do you agree that this reflects a negative relation between economic development and infection rates? Explain. (hint: negative is referring to the direction of the relation or the slope if you were to graph it). [2.5 marks]

b- Do you agree that this evidence is significant? Explain [2.5 marks]

c- Do you agree that this is a causal relation? Support your answer by providing a reason

Answer 1

a. I don't agree that there is negative relation between economic development and infection rates as developed countries have often other factors which are common such as temperature and eating habits.

b. I don't agree that this evidence is significant as much reasoning is not given behind the reason for spread of the infection. The infection is now spreading in developing countries and only after observing a longer term period after the virus subsides can one be able to determine the relation. Only discrepancy is that South Korea is a developed country and it was able to control the spread of the virus. So one requires much more evidence to conclude.

c. No, I don't agree as one can trust developed countries statistics, but one can't trust developing countries as they often don't give out data. So it isn't necessarily true that developed countries have much higher rates as not everyone is being tested in developing countries.