The correlation between fish consumption and the incidence of COVID-19 infection worldwide

Abstract

Introduction: It is well known now that the emergence of Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) started the grand fish market of Wuhan, China. According to official reports, fish consumption differs widely between countries; likewise, the spread of SARS-Cov-2 is highly variable in different parts of the world. Objectives: In this article correlation between fish consumption and the incidence of Covid-19 infection was performed, in addition to general descriptive statistics of the two variables. Study design: A cross-sectional comparative record-based study. Materials and Methods: The study was performed by tracking the reports of Covid-19 progression and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) reports on Fish consumption. Countries that had been excluded for been absent from the FAO report or the Covid-19 map (or both), were 14. A total of 174 countries worldwide were included in this research. Correlations between the variables were performed on a global prospect and each continent individually. Results: The average fish consumption per capita worldwide was 19.02+/-16.82 kilograms; the average incidence per million for Covid-19 was 1432+/-2372 cases per million population (CPM); and the correlation between fish consumption per capita and Covid-19 incidence worldwide was 0.089573896; a very weak positive correlation. Apart from Europe, all correlations between the two variables: fish consumption and the incidences of Covid-19, were weak or very weak. Conclusion: The assumption of Covid-19 being a zoonotic disease does not seem to fit for fish. Discordant statistics of correlation between fish-eating and the spread of the pandemic was against this theory.