Over the past 1.5+ years, COVID-19 has posed an immense challenge to public health systems around the world.

You are working for a development agency and your boss has asked that you help her understand the impact of Covid-19 within the larger health context in the country you are working on. After doing the research below, you write a memo (professionally and to audience) to your boss. If you are unfamiliar with this genre please refer to resources of the HWC (Links to an external site.) (链接到外部网站。).

In this exercise, you will

• find the most recent daily — i.e., the most recent data point — data for your chosen countries on cumulative numbers of confirmed cases per million people, cumulative numbers of confirmed deaths per million people, and cumulative vaccination rates per hundred people for COVID-19;
• find a series of data on two indicators of the country’s health status;
• find a series of data on (i) how much of the budget and (ii) how much of gross domestic product the government of the country spends on health;
• arrange the data in the second two bullet points on one or more graphs using Excel; and
• write a brief narrative on whether you have found a relationship between the severity of COVID-19 and (i) the overall health situation in the country; and (ii) the extent of government spending on public health.

Data Sources

• COVID-19: COVID-19 data here (Our World in Data) (链接到外部网站。)
• Health indicators (select two): Country data on health indicators here (WHO) (链接到外部网站。)
• Domestic general government health expenditure (% of general government expenditure): here (World Bank) (链接到外部网站。) and Domestic general government health expenditure (% of GDP) here (World Bank) (链接到外部网站。)

If you are unfamiliar or rusty with making graphics from data in Excel, a tutorial is available here Excel Quick and Simple Charts Tutorial (链接到外部网站。). Your product should be a professional looking and no longer than two pages, including graphics.

Do not copy and paste a graph made elsewhere or use a graph making tool on a web site. The graphs should also be professionally presented, clearly labeled, and properly cited. As noted in the guidance, all graphs should be of the same type (e.g., bar chart, line diagram), unless the student justifies following a different approach in the narrative.

Central Issue: Can an understanding of the larger health situation in the country and the government resources spent on health help us understand the severity of Covid-19?