Does Maintaining A Healthier Diet Help Us Fight Against COVID-19?


Authors: Sofia Chalkias, Ryan Abeysinghe


Introduction


Coronavirus (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The first case of COVID-19 was reported on December 1, 2019. COVID-19 began at the beginning of December 2019 near Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The cause of the pandemic was due to a new coronavirus, later called SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 is of animal origin, with genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, thought to result from a bat virome (bat-borne virus) [1] . In the past, outbreaks of some infectious diseases have been attributed to viruses from birds, pigs, and other animals that are lethal to humans.

Most people infected with the virus develop mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without the need for special treatment. However, some people become severely ill and need to see a doctor immediately, or within a few days of contracting symptoms. The Elderly and individuals with underlying disorders such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory illness, and cancer are more likely to contract serious illnesses, so they are at high-risk of acquire coronavirus [2]. Anyone is able to become infected with COVID-19, become seriously ill, or die. Although, the rate of contraction in younger individuals tend to persist much less.

The best way to prevent and delay transmission of Coronavirus is to be well informed about how the virus is spreading. The virus is able to be spread by small particles of liquid as an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks, or breathes through their mouth or nose. To protect yourself and others from infection, it is advised to stay at least six feet away from others, wear a properly-fitting mask, wash your hands frequently, use hand sanitizer or alcohol-based rubbing. Receiving a vaccine is highly recommended to fight against being infected with the Coronavirus.

With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is much uncertainty and misinformation being spread. In this final tutorial, we decided to address the importance of diet and maintaining a healthy lifestyle to lessen the risk of contracting COVID-19. Utilizing worldwide demographics and data, we seek to illustrate through information extraction, visual creativity, and statistical patterns to prove if having a healthier diet will increase the chances of survival against COVID-19. Through Data Science techniques such as Python regression analysis, null-hypothesis testing, and exploratory data analysis, we are determined to prove and disprove popular assumptions as to whether certain factors regarding the health of the individual affect COVID-19 mortality rates. The following variables will be utilized to prove our hypothesis: Obesity, Undernourishment, Vegetable consumption, Treenut consumption, and Fruits-Excluding Wine consumption.

To know more about the topics throughout the tutorial, we have links to various sources that are specified by bracketed numbers. These numbers are from the Works Cited Section at the bottom of our Tutorial. The sources provide various information regarding Covid-19 origins and its high risk populations, along with the benefits or drawbacks to certain types of diets outlined in the argument of the Tutorial.


Getting Started


Before you begin, import the libraries below into your Python 3 workspace. Each one of the libraries used below will be used to help visualize and manipulate the datasets.



Information About The Dataset


The datasets that we used came from Kaggle: Covid-19 Healthy Diet Dataset - Fat Supply Quantity and Covid-19 Healthy Diet Dataset - Food Supply Quantity

There are 33 columns in the dataset :

  • Country

  • Alcoholic Beverages

       - Alcohol, Non-Food; Beer; Beverages, Alcoholic; Beverages, Fermented; Wine

  • Animal Products

       - Aquatic Animals, Others; Aquatic Plants; Bovine Meat; Butter, Ghee; Cephalopods; Cream; Crustaceans; Demersal Fish; Eggs; Fats, Animals, Raw; Fish, Body Oil; Fish, Liver Oil; Freshwater Fish; Marine Fish, Other; Meat, Aquatic Mammals; Meat, Other; Milk - Excluding Butter; Molluscs, Other; Mutton & Goat Meat; Offals, Edible; Pelagic Fish; Pigmeat; Poultry Meat

  • Animal fats

       - Butter, Ghee; Cream; Fats, Animals, Raw; Fish, Body Oil; Fish, Liver Oil

  • Aquatic Products, Other

       - Aquatic Animals, Others; Aquatic Plants; Meat, Aquatic Mammals

  • Cereals - Excluding Beer

       - Barley and products; Cereals, Other; Maize and products; Millet and products; Oats; Rice (Milled Equivalent); Rye and products; Sorghum and products; Wheat and products

  • Eggs

  • Fish, Seafood

       - Cephalopods; Crustaceans; Demersal Fish; Freshwater Fish; Marine Fish, Other; Molluscs, Other; Pelagic Fish

  • Fruits - Excluding Wine

       - Apples and products; Bananas; Citrus, Other; Dates; Fruits, Other; Grapefruit and products; Grapes and products (excl wine); Lemons, Limes and products; Oranges, Mandarines; Pineapples and products; Plantains

  • Meat

       - Bovine Meat; Meat, Other; Mutton & Goat Meat; Pigmeat; Poultry Meat

  • Miscellaneous

       - Infant food

  • Milk - Excluding Butter

  • Offals

       - Offals, Edible which are animal organs such as heart, liver, or kidney

  • Oilcrops

       - Coconuts - Incl Copra; Cottonseed; Groundnuts (Shelled Eq); Oilcrops, Other; Olives (including preserved); Palm kernels; Rape and Mustardseed; Sesame seed; Soyabeans; Sunflower seed

  • Pulses

       - Beans; Peas

  • Spices

       - Cloves; Pepper; Pimento; Spices, Other

  • Starchy Roots

       - Cassava and products; Potatoes and products; Roots, Other; Sweet potatoes; Yams

  • Stimulants

       - Cocoa Beans and products; Coffee and products; Tea (including mate)

  • Sugar Crops

       - Sugar beet; Sugar cane

  • Sugar & Sweeteners

       - Honey; Sugar (Raw Equivalent); Sugar non-centrifugal; Sweeteners, Other

  • Treenuts

       - Nuts and products

  • Vegetal Products

       - Alcohol, Non-Food; Apples and products; Bananas; Barley and products; Beans; Beer; Beverages, Alcoholic; Beverages, Fermented; Cassava and products; Cereals, Other; Citrus, Other; Cloves; Cocoa Beans and products; Coconut Oil; Coconuts - Incl Copra; Coffee and products; Cottonseed; Cottonseed Oil; Dates; Fruits, Other; Grapefruit and products; Grapes and products (excl wine); Groundnut Oil; Groundnuts (Shelled Eq); Honey; Infant food; Lemons, Limes and products; Maize and products; Maize Germ Oil; Millet and products; Miscellaneous; Nuts and products; Oats; Oilcrops Oil, Other; Oilcrops, Other; Olive Oil; Olives (including preserved); Onions; Oranges, Mandarines; Palm kernels; Palm Oil; Palmkernel Oil; Peas; Pepper; Pimento; Pineapples and products; Plantains; Potatoes and products; Pulses, Other and products; Rape and Mustard Oil; Rape and Mustardseed; Rice (Milled Equivalent); Ricebran Oil; Roots, Other; Rye and products; Sesame seed; Sesameseed Oil; Sorghum and products; Soyabean Oil; Soyabeans; Spices, Other; Sugar (Raw Equivalent); Sugar beet; Sugar cane; Sugar non-centrifugal; Sunflower seed; Sunflowerseed Oil; Sweet potatoes; Sweeteners, Other; Tea (including mate); Tomatoes and products; Vegetables, Other; Wheat and products; Wine; Yams

  • Vegetable Oils

       - Coconut Oil; Cottonseed Oil; Groundnut Oil; Maize Germ Oil; Oilcrops Oil, Other; Olive Oil; Palm Oil; Palmkernel Oil; Rape and Mustard Oil; Ricebran Oil; Sesameseed Oil; Soyabean Oil; Sunflowerseed Oil

  • Vegetables

       - Onions; Tomatoes and products; Vegetables, Other

  • Obesity

  • Undernourished

  • Confirmed

  • Deaths

  • Recovered

  • Active

  • Population

  • Unit (all except Population)

    Note: Do not be alarmed that some of the columns have all zeroes in them. Since we are doing data analysis on the Fat Supply Quantity, the food in columns labeled: 'Alcoholic Beverages', 'Aquatic Products, Other', 'Sugar Crops', and 'Sugar & Sweeteners' do not contain fat, if at all.

    Specifically, the one dataset we are using is for the Fat Supply Quantity, meaning the percentage of fat intake from different types of food across the world. We will discover the further impact of these statistics in this tutorial.