This article explores the territorial differences in the onset and spread of COVID-19 and the excess mortality associated with the pandemic, across the European NUTS3 regions and US counties. Both in Europe and in the US, the pandemic arrived earlier and recorded higher Rt values in urban regions than in intermediate and rural ones. A similar gap is also found in the data on excess mortality. In the weeks during the first phase of the pandemic, urban regions in EU countries experienced excess mortality of up to 68pp more than rural ones. We show that, during the initial days of the pandemic, territorial differences in Rt by the degree of urbanisation can be largely explained by the level of internal, inbound and outbound mobility. The differences in the spread of COVID-19 by rural-urban typology and the role of mobility are less clear during the second wave. This could be linked to the fact that the infection is widespread across territories, to changes in mobility patterns during the summer period as well as to the different containment measures which reverse the causality between mobility and Rt.
翻译:文章探讨了欧洲NUTS3地区和美国各州在COVID-19的开始和蔓延方面存在的地域差异,以及与该流行病有关的超死亡率。在欧洲和美国,该流行病在城市地区比在中、农村地区更早出现,记录到的Rt值高于中、农村地区。在超死亡率数据中也发现了类似的差距。在流行病第一阶段的几周里,欧盟国家城市地区的死亡率比农村高68pp。我们表明,在流行病最初几天里,Rt因城市化程度造成的地域差异主要可以归因于内部、出入境和出入境的流动程度。在农村-城市类型中,COVID-19的传播差异和第二波期间流动性的作用不那么明显。这可能与以下事实有关:感染在各地蔓延,夏季期间流动模式的变化,以及扭转流动性和Rt之间因果关系的不同遏制措施。