ROBUST CLUSTERING OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC WORLDWIDE

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic is described as the most challenging crisis that humans have faced since World War II. From December 2019 until August 2021 based on the dataset provided by WHO, globally 219 countries in the world are affected by this virus. There are 205.338.159 cases cumulative total and 4.333.094 death cumulative total caused by this virus. In this paper, the data of 219 countries are analyzed using a robust clustering method namely K-Medoids cluster analysis. Based on the result, 219 countries in the world can be divided into five clusters based on four COVID-19-related variables, i.e. the number of cases cumulative total, death cumulative total, positive cases per capita, and case fatality rate. The distribution of the countries in five clusters was as follows; the first cluster contained 48 countries, the second cluster contained 3 countries, the third and fourth clusters contained 16 and 89 countries respectively, and the last cluster contained 63 countries. The largest cluster is the fourth one, containing countries that form a cluster with a centroid below the world average, and the smallest cluster is the second cluster with the high cases in all attributes, consisting of the USA, India, and Brazil.