Visualization and analysis of data related to government restrictive measures on covid-19

Abstract

From January 2020 onward, many countries around the world adopted government measures with the purpose of restricting the COVID-19 pandemic. In this thesis, initially a dashboard has been developed which provides interactive visualisations of the data related to the COVID-19 government measures. Subsequently, a number of analyses were carried out to find out whether the Greek government was taking measures in relation to the COVID-19 positive test rate and at what distance of days, using the cross-correlation method. For some selected European countries (Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Malta and Norway), their correlation with regard to their government measures is first estimated to determine how similarly they reacted to the tightening and the relaxing of measures and, secondly, at which distance of days their measures had the highest cross correlation. The Greek government’s measures showed a high correlation with the COVID-19 positive test rate, at a distance of +13 days. This behavior is explained by the fixed weekly-based reassessment of the COVID-19 situation in that country. Mediterranean countries were found to demonstrate similar behavior, a finding attributed to the fact that their economies are mainly driven by the tourist sector.