Publication:

H1N1 and COVID-19: surprising mortality pattern correlation

Background Explanation of observed differentials in mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic across regions and countries is a great dilemma. To improve current and future pandemic response and to shed a light on secrets of COVID-19 mortality variances, we design this study to compare mortalities / million (M) between Covid-19pandemic and H1N1 2009 pandemic mortalities.

Methods One hundred thirty countries and territories that reported H1N1 cases up to September, 2009, were enrolled. COVID-19 accumulative deaths were considered up to January, 2021. Countries and territories < 2 million inhabitants population at 2009 were excluded. We used simple regression analyses to test the associations (SPSS-21).

Results The pattern of variances in COVID-19 mortality rates across countries was surprisingly identical to the pattern of mortality rates across countries observed in H1N1 with meaningful linear regression tested in a two-tailed alternative statistical hypothesis. The slope value indicated that H1N1 deaths have a positive impact on COVID-19 mortality. with a very highly significant influence at p=0.0002. Relationship coefficient was accounted to (0.32789) with meaningful and a very high significant determination coefficient (R-Square = 10.75%). A very highly significant intercept (p=0.0000) reflects the severity of H1N1 and initial value even with no H1N1 deaths.

Conclusions We are adding another risk factor that can be used as a predictor for current and future epidemics.