Our predictive model does not account for variables relevant to local-scale factors that are associated with community infection or containment/suppression measures implemented against the epidemic in individual countries/regions. Consequently, the model has residuals (Fig 7), i.e., deviations in the observed number of COVID-19 cases that reflect the influence of local-scale drivers on disease spread. Positive deviations in the number of COVID-19 cases may indicate more serious local-scale cluster infections, e.g., in some prefectures in Japan or in parts of South East Asia, Africa, and South America, than predicted by the macro-scale driver-based model, whereas negative deviations in the number of COVID-19 cases indicate the influence of distributional disequilibrium of COVID-19 cases (because SARS-CoV-2 has only recently reached an area, e.g., Africa) or suggest the effectiveness of the present control measures in an area.