Dynamics of COVID-19 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

OBJECTIVES: The cumulative numbers of confirmed cases, despite providing few details regarding the dynamics, are widely used to model the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to determine the dynamics of COVID-19 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries by using the number of daily new cases rather than the cumulative number of new cases. METHODS: Data on daily new cases of COVID-19 in the GCC countries from February 2020 to September 2021 were obtained from the Worldometer website. In MATLAB, the Savitzky–Golay filter was used to obtain smoothed curves of the daily profiles of the pandemic, and power spectrum analysis was performed to identify the dominant frequencies. RESULTS: The smoothed curves indicated that the GCC countries have experienced two major waves of the pandemic with different peaks and durations. During the first wave, the exponential growth rates ranged from 9 cases/day in Bahrain to 53 cases/day in KSA, whereas the decline rates varied from 6 cases/day in Kuwait to 72 cases/day in KSA. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the similarities in socio-economic and environmental conditions among GCC countries, the results indicated that the dynamics of COVID-19 are unique for each GCC country.