Alfred Stach

Abstract

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has a simultaneous temporal and spatial component. This pattern results from a complex combination of factors, including social ones, that lead to significant differences in the evolution of space-time distributions, both between and within countries. The aim of this study was to assess changes in the regularity of the spatial distribution of the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases in Poland over more than a year of the pandemic. The analysis utilized daily and weekly data for 380 counties (poviats), using the local – Poisson risk semivariogram – measure of spatial autocorrelation. Despite the heterogeneity and errors in the source data, it was possible to identify clear patterns of temporal changes in the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases, manifested by differences in the nature and extent of their autocorrelation.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 cases, spatial autocorrelation, Poisson risk semivariogram, Poland, counties (poviats)

Alfred Stach [alfred.stach@amu.edu.pl], Department of Geoinformation, Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences of the Adam Mickiewicz University Bogumiła Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Poznań: Poland