Anomalous Dynamics of COVID-19 in Light of Tobler’s Laws of Geography

This article sets and considers a dual interdisciplinary task: first, verify the first and second Tobler’s laws of geography, characterizing the basic principles of interactions in geographic space, and, second, identify common factors that determine the spatiotemporal dynamics of pandemics using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example. Combining these two tasks in one study has become possible and justified due to the unique features of the available empirical material on the COVID-19 pandemic, namely, its wide dynamic range, large statistics, global spatial coverage, and record-breaking accuracy of the spatial and temporal localization of individual components of such a large-scale global process. The article substantiates the relevance of studying the nature of pandemics through examining their dynamics in the scope of the continuing uncertainty regarding the mechanisms of development of pandemic processes. The research methodology uses the holistic Popper–Selye method, proposed earlier by the authors, and the method of developing working mutually exclusive hypotheses, as well as the methodological apparatus of the principles of short-range and long-range actions. A comparative review is conducted of two mutually exclusive hypotheses about the nature of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic, corresponding to the concepts of short-range and long-range actions: a chain reaction controlled by local factors and a global self-sustaining process that ensures the stability of its established global dynamics. A paradoxical feature of the COVID-19 dynamics is noted: the steady and stable development of the pandemic process on a global scale in contrast to chaotically alternating short-term processes in individual countries, which make a main contribution to the global statistics. The comparison of the dynamics of the pandemic process in two randomly selected areas—in the United States and in all other countries—clearly demonstrates the presence of a factor that maintains the established dynamics of the pandemic by suppressing or enhancing its local manifestations in real time, which contradicts the first hypothesis and confirms the second one. It is stated that the presence of such a factor is incompatible with the idea of an exclusively short-range mechanism for the development of a pandemic and requires the assumption of the existence of a long-range global factor responsible for the correction of local processes in real time. It is concluded that, in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global factor prevails over the local one, which contradicts Tobler’s laws of geography in their current formulations. A critical analysis of the results is proposed, and a possible program for further research on the fundamental principles of geography is discussed.