Socio-spatial diffusion of COVID-19 in Germany
Final Report Abstract
This project has researched the socio-spatial diffusion of COVID-19 in Germany by gathering empirical findings on how the pandemic unfolded in Germany over time and by analyzing the socio-spatial patterns that emerged. While pandemic waves of COVID-19 have often been analyzed on the national scale, they typically are not distributed evenly within territories. In this line, this project researched how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in Germany during the years 2020 and 2021. By analyzing the trajectories of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany through a process perspective, we aimed to detect spatio-temporal patterns of pandemic diffusion. To do so, we employed the toolbox of tempo-spatial epidemiology and further developed methods to analyze the diffusion of pandemic outbreaks in time and space. Based on a novel pandemic severity composite indicator, a phase model of the pandemic trajectory was developed. The phase model revealed the unequal distribution of pandemic activity over time and space, with spatial autocorrelation generally being higher during phases of surging pandemic severity. Further, six types of pandemic severity trajectories among German counties were identified by using hierarchical clustering. The findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany progressed in a wavelike pattern in temporal terms but not spatially, since both hotspots and cold spots of pandemic severity remained in place over the course of multiple waves. To determine the types and directions of diffusion processes, a network-based diffusion analysis was performed. After testing the spatial autocorrelation for different network representations for the spatial structure between German counties, we were able to conclude that hierarchical diffusion was not a major factor for the diffusion of COVID-19 in Germany. By further analyzing the diffusion patterns during the four waves during the study period, we found that expansion diffusion seemed to have been a factor only on the local scale and during a few specific episodes on the regional level. These findings imply that region-specific aspects trumped dynamics of diffusion between regions. The results of the project led us to the conceptual conclusion that spatial diffusion should be analyzed as a process that is influenced by a combination of socio-spatial dimensions, and thus very place specific. Different sub-processes are influenced by combinations of different dimensions of space, including networks, places, territories, and scales.
Publications
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Tempo-spatial dynamics of COVID-19 in Germany – A phase model based on a pandemic severity indicator. (2023, 2, 23). American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Stabler, Martin & Kuebart, Andreas
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Waves in time, but not in space – An analysis of pandemic severity of COVID-19 in Germany based on spatio-temporal clustering. (2023, 1, 28). American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Kuebart, Andreas & Stabler, Martin
