Local and regional factors of spatial differentiation of the excess mortality related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania

COVID-19 revealed some major weaknesses and threats that are related to the level of territorial development. In Romania, the manifestation and the impact of the pandemic were not homogenous, which was influenced, to a large extent, by a diversity of sociodemographic, economic, and environmental/geographic factors. The paper is an exploratory analysis focused on selecting and integrating multiple indicators that could explain the spatial differentiation of COVID-19-related excess mortality (EXCMORT) in 2020 and 2021. These indicators include, among others, health infrastructure, population density and mobility, health services, education, the ageing population and distance to the closest urban center. We analyzed the data from local (LAU2) and county level (NUTS3) by applying multiple linear regression and geographically weighted regression models. The results show that mobility and lower social distancing were far more critical factors for higher mortality than the intrinsic vulnerability of the population, at least in the first two years of COVID-19. However, the highly differentiated patterns and specificities of different areas of Romania resulting from the modelling of EXCMORT factors drive to the conclusion that the decision-making approaches should be place-specific in order to have more efficiency in case of pandemics.