A Poisson Regression Analysis of COVID-19 Pandemic: Implication on Food Security in North Eastern Nigeria

The North East region of Nigeria is the worst hit by activities of Boko Haram terrorist group displacing homes, livelihoods, destruction to lives and properties with Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with about 3.6 million people projected to be in severe acute food in security. The COVID-19 Pandemic has further aggravated the precarious food security in the region. The study was therefore conducted to examine COVID-19 cases in the region and its likely effects on food security. The data for the study was extracted from the daily COVID-19 cases update released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) online database from February 28th, 2020 – 31st August 2020. The extracted data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Poisson Regression. Results of the analysis revealed that admitted and discharged cases had negative and inverse relationship with COVID-19 related deaths in the North East region of the country. Furthermore, increased cases have a positive and significant effect on the number of deaths. The effect of the pandemic has also worsen food security with decrease in minimum food items needed for survival of a household in a month as a result of the increase in the Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket (SMEB) from N19,072($47.68) to N19,345 ($48.36) in selected markets in the region.