State of COVID-19 in Oklahoma: Patterns, socio-interrelations, and accessibility

COVID-19, which hit the world in December 2019, has been a great cause of concern, requiring intense research to curb the virus and create focused policies and management. Therefore, the focus of this research is to provide invaluable insights and add to existing knowledge on the COVID-19 virus by using GIS based models to analyze the spatial and spatiotemporal patterns of COVID-19 in Oklahoma. Due to the nature of the virus, it is important to continually assess the geographic distribution of cases and deaths as well as factors that contribute to the patterns. The study therefore uses GIS based methods such as the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, space time cubes, and time series clustering to identify hotspots of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Oklahoma. The results showed that hotspots of COVID-19 cases were found around Oklahoma City where hotspots of Blacks and Hispanics are located. In contrast, for COVID-19 deaths, significant hotspots pattern was found in rural areas mainly where significant hotspots of American Indians are located. In addition, a significant uptrend of COVID-19 cases was found in a few zip codes, and a significant decrease in COVID-19 deaths was found in most zip codes located in the state. Lastly, areas experiencing similar increase and decrease trends in both COVID-19 cases and deaths were identified. Future work is needed to identify the binding factors that may be causing similar upward and downward trend in the virus.