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Modern Geomatics Technologies and Applications

                     With the temporal neighborhood increasing to three days, parts of Australia and Brazil have been identified
               as  historic  cold  spots  and  western  China  as  oscillating  cold  spots  (Fig.  3.a).  Also,  by  setting  the  temporal
               neighborhood to 14 days, the results of Fig. 3.b were obtained. According to the results, many parts of the southern
               hemisphere were identified as persistent cold spots due to their low confirmed cases.

                     Countries like Mexico have a new hot spot in the northern part of the neighborhood with the USA and a
               historic cold spot in the southern part of the neighborhood with Guatemala. New hot spots have also been found in
               southern Canada and oscillating hot spots in eastern China. Figure 2.c shows an example of the patterns produced
               for death, with a neighboring step of 1 day.
                     According to WHO reports, the official estimated range for COVID-19 has been 2 to 14 days. Therefore, the
               hot/cold spot map for confirmed cases and deaths was prepared by setting the temporal neighborhood steps at 1,3,7
               and 14 days. In terms of infections, large parts of Europe, Middle East, the USA, South Korea and the East of China

               have been identified as hot patterns. However, in terms of death rates, parts of  Europe, particularly Italy, France,
               Spain, the United Kingdom,  and the Netherlands,  have also been identified as oscillating  hot spots. Parts of the
               United States have been reported as a new hot spot due to increased deaths and parts of China as a persistent cold
               spot due to reduced deaths.
                     The results of the maps are presented in Table 2. For each map, the percentages of areas in the different types

               of  hot  spots  and  cold  spots  were  obtained.  With  increasing  temporal  neighborhood  steps,  the  percentage  of  no
               patterns decreased and the hot/cold patterns increased. Fortunately, for now, the percentage of cold spots is higher
               than hot spots. In addition, p-value, z-scores, hot percent, and cold percent were calculated for each pixel. Hot and
               cold percentages are high and low values percentages, respectively. The highest z-score was for cases in Spain and
               deaths in Italy and Iran, indicating more intense hot spots. The lowest z-score was for cases in Madagascar and
               deaths in Gabon, indicating more intense cold spots. It is clear that the results of spatio-temporal analysis show the
               hot/cold spot areas with more detail.


               4. Conclusion
                     Epidemiology  is  a  study  and  analysis  of  distribution  patterns  and  situations  of  disease  in  the  study  area

               [15,16].  With  the  daily  increase  of  COVID-19  cases,  studying  its  patterns  in  different  regions  and  discovering
               Spatio-temporal clusters is needed. By analyzing hot/cold spots and finding high-risk areas, it is possible to find
               ways to reduce its spread. It is also important to predict the number of cases and deaths because of the lack of potent
               drugs against Coronavirus infection and its abundant rise. Accurate prediction of cases and deaths can greatly assist
               politicians and decision-makers in legislating until its vaccine is discovered that suggest for further research. Also,
               effective factors in COVID-19 will be extracted which is suggests further study in this field.
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