A new study comparing countries most severely hit by COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic has found that international travel showed the biggest impact on increases in death rates.
A research team from the University of Aberdeen, which has published findings in in BMJ Open, examined a range of factors including country-level international arrivals, population density, the percentage of people living in urban areas, age, average body mass index and smoking prevalence.
They then compared these to mortality rates across the 37 countries most severely affected by the first wave of the pandemic.
They found that once adjustments were made for these factors, as well as for the impact of socioeconomic and environmental conditions and healthcare systems, the biggest increase in death rates was associated with international arrivals.
