Modelling long Range Dependence and Non-linearity in the Covid-19 Mortality Rates

Abstract This paper relates to allaying the global fear on the persistence of the mortality rates due to the outbreak of the current COVID-19. This study thus uses the fractional integration techniques to examine the degree of persistence in the COVID-19 mortality rates for the global data and six high-risk countries, namely China, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. We find evidence in favour of mean reversion for the global mortality rates in all cases, except Italy and Spain where anti-persistence is observed. The reversion is expected to be faster for the United States followed by France. This means that the effects of the shocks caused by the pandemic on mortality rates will recover automatically by themselves in the countries where mean reversion is noticed. Therefore, we suggest that, in addition to the global strive for medical breakthrough over the virus, other current policies, including social distancing, frequent hand sanitization, appropriate regional lockdowns, etc. introduced by most of these countries are important in drastically reducing the number of contacts with the virus. This will consequently have decreasing effects on mortality rates, and then ensure fast rate of reversion.