The results heavily contradict a previous study done associating the change in new COVID-19 cases in European countries \citep*{Pardhan2021}. The study shows that a country’s GDP per capita is associated with lower incidence rates. Even though the economic well-being of a country is important because of healthcare’s need for funding, this study shows that there might be other factors that might be associated with incidence and mortality rates, such as vaccination rates \citep{Chen2021} and social norms \citep{Gelfand2021}.
In the case of GDP, results from GDP per capita largely hold the same, except for the levels of correlation for all countries. The levels of correlation for both incidence and mortality rates are just weak positive, which suggests that its relationship is less close than the GDP per capita.
 Another possible factor confounding the relationship between infection and mortality rates and the economic status of a country is the government response towards the pandemic. For example, the United States, a high-income country, has an incidence rate of 12384.51 people infected per 100,000 people, making it the country in 14th place in its incidence rate and 25th place in its mortality rate. This is caused by the delay of proper health interventions such as lockdowns and testing that should have taken place as soon as possible \citep{Sepulveda2021}. In the same report, they had found that the lack of effective national response to the pandemic is detrimental in bringing down the cases of COVID-19.
In addition to this, multiple countries in the low-income bracket, such as Niger, Yemen, and Chad are among the lowest in their incidence rates. Low-income countries such as Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Niger are also among the lowest in their mortality rates. This just shows to show that there are other things that countries could do in improving their pandemic response aside from just strengthening their economy.
These results must be considered when countries are finding ways on how to improve pandemic responses in the future. Countries must not only consider their economic growth, but also consider other factors that are outside the scope of the study, such as healthcare, education, and cultural and social norms.