This note provides preliminary evidence on the determinants of the COVID-19 infection and death cases using a sample of 217 countries and territories. We control for a number of country characteristics. These include GDP per capita, and demographic, openness, institutional and geographic variables. We find positive effects of the level of economic development and the size of pediatric population on infection cases. In terms of death cases, the number of infections, the share of geriatric population and the lack of systematic BCG vaccination all play a positive and significant role.