Senegalese researchers working on a severity index of Covid-19

In Senegal, the Office of Economic Foresight is working on the development of a Covid-19 severity index, betting on statistics to draw lessons from the global management of the crisis.

Since its creation in 2018, the Office has already developed a number of indicators that are supposed to measure, among other things, a country’s level of economic development or quality of life.

Today, it offers a weekly ranking of the world’s countries according to the results achieved in their management of the health crisis that has been shaking the world for several months.

The statistical exercise is based on infection, death and cure rates, among other things, in order to determine which countries are most severely affected by Covid-19, and then to examine mathematically the factors of resilience, and understand why some countries are more resilient than others. ‘‘We have no control over the spread of the virus.

The idea is not to create a model to predict its spread but to focus on managing confirmed cases,’’ Mubarack Lô, statistical engineer and economist, co-designer of the index, told Jeune Afrique magazine.