It was revealed that what caused the disease that emerged with respiratory symptoms (fever, cough, shortness of breath) towards the end of 2019 in Wuhan city of China's Hubei province, and later named as COVID-19 by WHO was SARS-CoV-2 virus. The COVID-19 epidemic affected Turkey very quickly as it did the entire world, and the first official case in Turkey was detected in March 2020. In this study, how the COVID-19 cases are clustered in the districts of Malatya and the structure of this clustering as well as whether the cluster has changed over time was revealed by using the spatial exploratory analysis approach. For this purpose, Global and Local Moran I statistics that measure spatial interaction were used. For the hot spot analysis, Getis-Ord’s Gi* statistic was used. Moran I, which measures the spread of COVID-19 among districts, is statistically significant, and the spread effect is close to medium, although not very strong. It has been determined that Yazıhan and Akçadağ districts are the riskiest districts on average as of the period under consideration according to Lokal Moran I statistics. According to the Getis-Ord’s Gi* statistics, Yazıhan district is the one that is most suitable for the spread of the epidemic for Malatya, again being a hot spot location. It has been observed that Yazıhan district is frequently in the hot spot according to the monthly analysis of the Gi*statistics. In this context, it is important for Yazıhan district to increase the necessary measures in the coming periods and to make efforts to raise awareness of the citizens.
Key words: COVID-19 pandemic, exploratory spatial data analysis, Malatya province
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