Behind the Coronavirus Counts, How well do the Numbers Stack up?

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
International Relations, Media & Communications, Medical history, Natural Environment, Politics, Public health,

Every day we are reminded of the global reach of the novel coronavirus crisis. We know it’s a pandemic because WHO and other health agencies publish data showing that 211 countries and territories have been affected by the disease. The international media coverage tends to focus largely on the unenviable “big five” chart-toppers who have been most affected – the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK. A number of sites publish constantly updated lists of the growing toll of Covid-19 casualties, a sort of sombre “score card” listing all the countries who have recorded instances of the disease.

Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Globally tracked, country-by-country – as @ 23-Apr-2020

Country Total casesTotal deaths Region
USA850,00047,700Americas
Italy 188,00025,500Western Europe
Spain 208,50021,750Western Europe
France 160,00021,500Western Europe
UK134,00018,300Western Europe
Sources: WHO http://covid19.who.int/;
http://worldometers.info/

When we scroll through the world tables of where the pandemic has landed, it’s instructive to look at the comparative totals by continent – Europe has a bit over 1.28 million confirmed cases recorded, and the Americas, 995,510 (predominantly from the US), compare these to South-East Asia, a bit more than 38,572 and Africa, a mere 18,234 cases✺✺.

(Source: www.vietnamcredit.com.vn)

From a statistical standpoint we might wonder if the published data gives a true impression of the extent of of the pandemic? It needs to be kept in mind that the numbers we have are those that have been reported to the World Health Organisation. Population differences aside, it is clear that the low numbers in South-East Asia and Africa (examples: Cambodia 122 cases, zero fatalities✺✺, Myanmar 139 cases, five fatalities✺✺, Ghana 1,279 cases, 10 fatalities✺✺, Ethiopia 117 cases, three fatalities✺✺) mask the full impact of the catastrophe. They are a product of limited testing by countries in these regions … widespread poverty, surplus populations, lack of resources and infrastructure mitigate against the capacity to take corrective, safety monitoring measures.

(Photo: www.theborneopost.com)

Limited testing capacity and weak surveillance
The small numbers of recorded cases and handful of reported deaths in Africa and S.E. Asia (the Caribbean is another such case in point) can engender a false security and justify a lack of action by such already economically and health-challenged countries, thus the risk of infections spreading is magnified. In the early phases of the outbreak some S.E. Asian states were slow to acknowledge the risks…even as late as mid-March, Myanmar’s government was still attributing it’s low number of cases to the superior “lifestyle and diet” of the locals. The fight against Covid-19 by Third World countries is further retarded by a failure to test widely and in the numbers necessitated by the crisis. It shouldn’t be overlooked that some of these countries have quite repressive regimes that don’t rank the goal of a universal healthcare system as their highest priority [‘Experts Doubt Low Coronavirus Counts of Some Southeast Asian Countries’, (Zsombor Peter), VOA, 29-Mar-2020, www.voanews.com].

(Photo: www.upnews.info.com)

For the bulk of African countries the story is similar. A by-product of their lack of development is that their health systems are fragile before the onset of coronavirus hits them. Awareness of the inability to cope with a full-blown health crisis, had led some leaders to advocate so-called “miracle cures” for the virus (eg, Madagascar’s president’s championing of untested traditional plant remedies). Nigeria (Africa’s largest nation by population)  shows only 981 confirmed cases and 31 deaths✺✺ to date but is looking as vulnerable as anyone in Africa. Oil exports are the hub of Nigeria’s economy and the fall of the world’s crude oil price to a record low will hamstrung the country’s efforts to contain any future eruptions of the disease [‘Coronavirus: How drop in oil price affects Nigeria’s economy’, (Michael Eboh), Vanguard, 17-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. The outbreak of pandemic hotspots in Nigeria could be devastating, especially in the north, given the country’s population of nearly 200 million people and it’s inadequate healthcare capacity⋉.

(Photo: www.newswirenow.com)

Too good to be …
Some countries have reported being lightly or relatively lightly touched by the onslaught of the coronavirus, these results have surprised outside observers. One such country that raises eyebrows in this respect is Russia. The republic has 146 million people and shares long borders with China⤱, yet it fesses up to having had only 68,622 cases✺✺ (well under half of that of the UK) and suffered only a comparatively low 615 deaths✺✺ from the epidemic (most of those since the start of April). If you cast aside the anomalies, on paper it’s an excellent result! But whether Soviet or post-Soviet, there’s always an air of suspicious doubt about Russian information. The Russian Bear has had form in the past with cover-ups…a prime example—the Soviet Union throwing a tarpaulin over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s —indicative of a less than honest response to major disasters [‘The Very Low Number of Russia’s Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up’, (Rick Moran), PJ Media, 22-Mar-2020, www.pjmedia.com].

Image: www.asianews.it

Russia, if it so erred, is not “Robinson Crusoe” in deliberately underreporting the pandemic’s effect. China for nearly three months from the initial outbreak didn’t include asymptomatic patients in the official stats, and only rectified this oversight on April Fools Day [‘China acknowledges underreporting coronavirus cases in official count’, (Mark Moore), New York Post, 01-Apr-2001, www.nypost.com]. For six weeks after WHO declared a global health emergency Indonesia did not report a single Covid-19 case (unlike most of it’s S.E. Asian neighbours). Considering the republic’s population size (more than 270 million) and it’s close links with China, this aroused widespread suspicion of underreporting and criticism in a Harvard University study which seemed to belatedly jolt Indonesia into disclosure. The first notification by Djakarta of coronavirus cases occurred on 2nd March, and from then on Indonesia’s curve has been on an upward trajectory – currently 8,211 cases, 689 deaths✺✺ [‘Why are there no reported cases of coronavirus in Indonesia?’, (Randy Mulyanto & Febriana Firdaus), Aljazeera, 18-Feb-2020, www.aljazeera.com].


Doubting a hermetically-sealed “Hermit Kingdom”
North-East Asia’s renegade, secretive state, North Korea, can be added to the list of countries purporting to be Covid-19–free. Pyongyang‘s official line has been met with disbelief from several external sources such as South Korea and Radio Free Europe which asserts that disclosures from within North Korean military circles confirm the occurrence of coronavirus cases in the border areas [‘What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea’, (Nicholas Eberstadt), New York Times, 22-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com]

Addendum: (Coronavirus as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-April-2020)
USA 890,200 cases | 50,403 deaths
Italy 189,973 cases | 25,549 deaths
Spain 219,764 cases  | 22,524 deaths
France 158,183 cases | 21,856 deaths
UK 143,464 cases | 19,506 deaths

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
✺✺ figures as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-Apr-2020
⋉ just over the last week the African continent experienced a sudden surge in infections, ‘Africa’s 43% jump in virus cases in 1 week worries experts’, (Gerard Zim Rae), ABC News, 23-Apr-2020, www.abcnews.go.com
⤱ although Russia did close its eastern border with China after the virus breakout  

 

Revisiting the Coronavirus Origin Theories

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Medical history, Natural Environment, Public health,, Regional History, Science and society

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(Image: KPBS)

China notified the World Health Organisation on 31 December 2019 of a series of “pneumonia-like” cases popping up in Wuhan, however it took some time for peripheral parts of the country to get wind of the burgeoning health crisis. Information from the government, when it did come, was pretty sketchy in the early stages of the outbreak. Soon after Chinese migrant workers began returning home from Wuhan, rumours of what might have caused the virus started to circulate in the regions.

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Zoonotic source
As the infection rates in Wuhan and Hubei province started to steeple in early February, there was lots of speculations about animal transmission to coronavirus’ “Patient Zero”. Civets, snakes, seafood, wolf cubs, rats—all live wildlife sold at the Wuhan ‘wet’ markets—got mentions as possible candidates for transmission. The story most heard and retold at the time was that it was bats that had transmitted the pathogen to humans at the Hua’nan markets⌧  (‘How It All Started: China’s Early Coronavirus Missteps’, (J Page, WX Fan & N Khan), WSJ, 06-Mar-2020), www.wsj.com). The Rhinolophus bat (Horseshoe bat) has been identified as the specific type of bat likely to have carried the infection (‘Coronavirus animal origin’, Crikey, 16-Apr-2020, www.crickey.com.au). A few weeks later there was a new prime suspect – the pangolin, the world’s most trafficked mammal. Chinese virologists⚘ had traced the virus to pangolins being sold at those same seafood markets in Wuhan (‘Mystery deepens over animal source of coronavirus’, (David Cyrenoski), Nature, 26-Feb-2020, www.nature.com).

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 (Image: Frans Lanting / National Geographic)

The inevitable conspiracy theories: Genetically-engineered virus
Since February China and the US have exchanged accusations that Covid-19 was deliberately created as a biological weapon—all without foundation (‘No, COVID-19 Coronavirus Was Not Bioengineered. Here’s The Research That Debunks That Idea’,  (Bruce Y Lee), Forbes, 17-Mar-2020, www.forbes.com). Chinese officials have also made the wild claim that the US Army brought the virus to Wuhan when it participated in the Military Games in the city in October last year. 

B041C7DB-C8DE-46DD-9276-AA94462605CD🔺 Wuhan markets (Photo: NOEL CELIS /AFP via Getty Images)

Over the last couple of months, another story disseminated by southern Republicans has been doing the rounds of the conservative media in America. It espouses the view that coronavirus originated not from a wet market but from a biosafety lab in Wuhan (Wuhan Institute of Virology), from an accidental leakage. Again this view is bereft of any hard evidence to support it but this hasn’t stopped President Trump and his allies at Fox from seizing on it!✱ (“’Biological Chernobyl’: How China’s secrecy fueled coronavirus suspicions”, (Q Forgey, D Lippmann, N Bertrand & L Morello), Politico, 17-Apr-2020, www.politico.com).

While Covid-19 continues to wreak its trail of carnage worldwide, media and social media platforms will no doubt continue to throw up theories about the causes but until China releases the clinical and epidemiological data on the Wuhan outbreak,  the pandemic’s precise origin cannot be scientifically determined (Politico).3747AFE1-BAC3-4B1C-8F33-BF283C622CD2

🔺 Exporting America’s homegrown “Gates-gate”conspiracy – ‘Covidiocy‘ to Melbourne
(Photo: AAP/Ricky Barbour)

______________________________________________
⌧ bats are major reservoirs of many viruses, and prevalent in both the SARS and MERS outbreaks
⚘ scientific evidence for the pangolin as the culprit is based on a high match of its genome sequencing with that of SARS-CoV-2, however the research remains unpublished and therefore unreviewed; it is thought that pangolins may have been intermediate hosts for the disease …
bat ⇝ pangolin ⇝ human
✱ these are only the less implausible theories, a raft of other ludicrous and wacky conspiratorial notions have been floated purporting to explain the epidemic’s genesis – ranging from Bill Gates having manufactured the virus to establish  himself as the ‘Czar’ of US health care, to Covid-19 being caused by the installation of the 5G cellphone network (‘Coronavirus spawns conspiracy theories’, (David Knowles), Yahoo!news, 18-Apr-2020, www.yahoonews.com)

Covid/Ovid 2020: Crisis (Mis)Management – How the World’s Leaders are Responding?

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Media & Communications, Medical history, Natural Environment, Politics

Lockdown immediately, quarantine everyone, isolate the virus? Close the borders! Go hard, go fast! Make haste slowly! Laissez-faire? Test as many as you can! Watch and wait, hold off, preserve the economy, keep people working! Half/half?Herd immunity? As the experts—both recognised and putative—come out of the woodwork, a plethora of different approaches to the 21st century’s greatest crisis are thrown up, causing ever deeper descent into confusion for those of us watching from the sidelines.

Sweden: Personal responsibility to do the right thing, fingers and toes crossed
At one extreme there’s the “hands-off” non-interventionist line adopted by Sweden…”a relatively relaxed strategy, seemingly assuming that overreaction is more harmful than under-reaction” – in other words, keep calm and carry on. The Swedish government’s goal being to build up a “herd immunity” of the population to (they hope) forestall further waves of infection. The blueprint involves letting the virus spread slowly while sheltering the old and weakest elements of society until the bulk of the population become naturally immune. So schools, restaurants, bars and gyms remain open, all places that many other countries have ’hot-spotted’ as potential petri dishes (to use of the media’s current favourite buzzword in the virus crisis). Critics of the Swedish voluntary approach have stressed the risks it is exposing itself to – a danger of overwhelming the health system’s capability and precipitating large numbers of premature deaths [‘Inside Sweden’s Radically Different Approach to the Coronavirus’, (Bojan Pancevski), Wall Street Journal, 30-Mar-2020, www.wsj.com; ‘Sweden under fire for ‘relaxed’ coronavirus approach – here’s the science behind it’, The Conversation, (PW Frank & PM Nilsson), 30-Mar-2020, www.mamamia.com.au]. While Sweden persists in it’s “long game”, Sweden’s death toll from coronavirus has reached 239❈, a far-from-inconsequential figure for a small population nation like Sweden (and more than double the next highest total of fatalities in the Nordic region, that of Denmark). Not happy, Scandinavian neighbours of Sweden!

🔺 Boris in isolation – self-sacrificing crash-test dummy for the nation, gauging the coronavirus level of virulence: “taking one for the nation!” (Picture: No 10 Downing Street/AFP)

Boris, not dancing
The UK government in the early stages of the crisis, along with the Netherlands, flirted with adopting Sweden’s herd immunity approach, but subsequently (and belatedly) opted for lockdown. The UK number of cases and mortality rates continue to rise alarmingly (2,352 dead❈) and it’s citizens can draw little reassurance from the antics of its erratic Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson. At the onset the insouciant Johnson downplayed the epidemic and declared that he was all for shaking hands with as many people as he could (his Churchillian bluff AKA confidence-building strategy?) This didn’t prove a good move, personally for the prime minister, as he was soon struck down with the virus (recalling wistfully whilst in self-quarantine that shaking hands with some people at a hospital, who with hindsight probably had coronavirus, probably wasn’t a good idea).

(Photo: AP)

China’s southern neighbours
Taiwan and Singapore both got early warning of the outbreak in China, which helped them get an early start on their countries’ protective measures. Taiwan, at the get-go, posted health workers at airports – incoming passengers from Wuhan (the virus’ origin-point) were checked for symptoms before they exited the planes. Singapore on January 3, inside four days of China’s notification to WHO of an unknown virus, which later was confirmed to be the COVID pathogen, was temperature screening passengers arriving from Wuhan. Taiwan and Singapore were also in a better state of preparedness (than say northern Asian countries bordering China like South Korea and Japan which initially struggled with their respective outbreaks) The two southeast Asian micro-states had learned invaluable lessons from the 2003 SARS and the 2009 swine epidemics. That the Singaporean and Taiwanese governments were upfront and transparent with the public, also got everyone in society quickly on board with the “national project”. The death toll for both Taiwan and Singapore stands well short of double figures❈ [‘How Taiwan and Singapore Have Contained the Coronavirus’, (Chloe Hadavas), Slate, 11-Mar-2020, www.slate.com].

(Photo: AP)

Continental contrast
The European comparison of how different countries have handled the virus focuses largely on a Germany v Italy correlation – unfortunately to the great disadvantage of the latter. Angela Merkel and Germany have been able to restrict their coronavirus fatalities thus far to 931❈, compared to Italy’s out-of-control, frighteningly catastrophic 13,155 deaths❈. The reasons for the size of discrepancy are manifold. First as with Taiwan Germany was ready at the outset, comparatively Italy wasn’t. Germany went to social distancing and lockdown early while Italy prevaricated, and Italy was also slow to seal it’s borders. Anticipation paid off for Germany, it had developed a favourable type of test for the virus before it hit. They then tested fast and widely. Italy was slower off the mark, and it’s testing regime was (and is) half or less that of Germany’s capacity. Integral to Germany’s edge is its medical infrastructure, the ratios are stark: Germany has 33.9 hospital beds for every 100,000 of population, cf. Italy, only 8.6 per 100,000. So, by the time Italy got its testing into full swing, the country was swamped with way too many corona-patients requiring critical and urgent treatment. Italy’s age demographic, skewed towards the geriatric end of the scale (second oldest population in the world after Japan) was also a decisive factor in the extremely high mortality rates it has experienced [‘How one country got months ahead of its neighbours in coronavirus fight’, (AP), Yahoo!News, 02-Apr-2020].

Life on Planet Trump 
In the US a reasonable expectation the citizens of the world’s leading democratic-capitalist state might normally entertain in such a disastrous crisis, would be to have mature, insightful national leadership. Instead, they have Trump! Countless reems of pages of news-copy have been wasted on the US president, but to briefly summarise his Covid-19 performance: at the start in January we got the glib and blasé Trump – “the virus was one person coming from China and we’ve got it under control”; by February it was, we had “pretty much shut it down” (somehow he thought it was over before it had hardly started taking root!?!); next he opined “warm weather will kill it in April”; “the numbers are going down” (said after public health officials had advised the White House that the virus was spreading); by late February it was “we have lost nobody to coronavirus” (there had already been US fatalities). In March Trump, rebuked for repeatedly spreading misinformation, resorted to “it’s the Democrats’ new hoax”; then, “it will disappear one day – like a miracle!” which perhaps demonstrates one of Trump’s rare threads of consistency, drawing a link to the president’s later assertion (completely tone-deaf to the message of social distancing and ignorant of realistic timeframes) that he wanted to see the churches in America full at Easter!✪ [‘Coming Soon: Donald Trump As the Hero of COVID-19”, (Richard North Patterson), The Bulwark, 23-Mar-2020, www.thebulwurk.com].

(Photo: CBS News)

Perhaps the most striking and alarming example of Trump’s off-the-cuff and off-the-rails raves is his wilful and flagrant ignoring of the professional advice of his top medical advisers, eg, “anyone who wants a test can have one” (wrong); “we’ll have vaccines relatively soon…they’re coming” (even the non-scientific layperson knows it will take at least one to one-and-a-half years to be publicly available); “we have tremendous control of the virus”, completely contradicting Dr Fauci’s starkly realistic warning that the worst is ahead of us. The consequences of Trump’s disregarding scientific truths provided by medical experts in favour of convenient misinformation has been downright dangerous. His advocacy of an unproven coronavirus treatment (chloroquine phosphate) still being scientifically reviewed was a causal factor leading to the death of a man who tried to self-medicate using the ‘treatment’.

Trump, master of the ad hominem at the lectern, recently on TV seems bored with the subject, maybe looking round for a new focus (Iran?). Trump as president takes no responsibility. When he should be uniting all the key cogs in a coherent national response to the corona-crisis which is killing hundreds of Americans every day, he has been his divisive worst, brawling with the media, attacking medical workers for supposedly hoarding supplies, shifting blame to state governors. Fortunately, governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, California’s Gavin Newsom and Washington’s Jay Inslee, recognising the gaping gap in leadership and the lack of support coming from the White House, have risen to the mammoth and increasingly desperate challenge facing the country and taken the lead in the crisis [‘History’s verdict on Trump will be devastating’, (Michael D’Antonio), CNN, 30-Mar-2020, www.cnn.com].

(Photo: Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The “Trump of the Tropics” 
Trump’s abject performance, his “epochal incompetence” (to quote Michael D’Antonio), in the crisis, is bad enough for the risks he has exposed Americans to, but his influence as a “role model” for far-right leaders in other countries, is helping to undermine those countries’ fight against the virus. One such leader is Brazil’s authoritarian president Jair Bolsonaro who expresses profound admiration for Trump (hence his nickname above), whose skepticism for the virus’ threat Bolsonaro mirrors. Bolsonaro has publicly dismissed the coronavirus as “a little cold”, refuses to isolate and continues to attend public events, irresponsibly mingling with crowds of his supporters, shaking hands with all❖. Bolsonaro, like Trump, has tended to “flip-flop” on the epidemic, lunging erratically from urging Brazilians to show caution in avoiding transmission of the disease (do as I say, not do as I do!) to calling for an end to the quarantine restrictions and removal of the shackles on the economy.

When confronted with the danger of the virus to Brazilian society, Bolsonaro rivals Trump in loopy explanations, eg, Brazilians possess a “natural immunity” which means that they cannot be infected by diseases❅ (part of the Bolsonaro fantasy playbook!) So far, despite these unique ‘antibodies’ claimed by Bolsonaro, some 244 Brazilians have died from coronavirus❈. The Brazilian president has also exhibited the Trump trait of disbelieving the medical experts and the official statistics. When São Paulo recorded a sharp spike in deaths from the virus, Bolsonaro was quick to cast doubts on the numbers. The governors of São Paulo and Rio are two of the most vocal critics of his lax approach to the crisis, in return Bolsonaro blames the state governors for their concerted measures to halt the disease, labelling their efforts ‘criminal’ [‘Brazil’s Bolsonaro makes life-or-death coronavirus gamble’, (David Biller), Sydney Morning Herald, 29-Mar-2020, www.smh.com.au].

🔺 Bolsonaro, unsafe at any distance?

Some analysts have noted the element of political calculation in Bolsanaro’s hard line on the epidemic. The Brazilian leader’s may feel that if he can take the economy (still feeling the severe effects of the 2015/16 recession) to the next elections in good health, the voters may be less concerned about the country’s death toll from coronavirus (David Biller). Mexico’s president, López Obrador, is singing from a similar hymn-sheet as Bolsonaro. Obrador contends that the severity of the virus has been overstated, and has been quoted as saying that personally he would rely on his (lucky) amulets to keep him safe [‘In Brazil and Mexico, Leaders Downplay Dangers of Virus Outbreak’, Latino USA, 26-Mar-2020, www.latinousa.org].

🔺 President Lukashenko, national leader, sportsman, tractor enthusiast

Belarus, 2020 global sporting capital
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko is another head of state professing an admiration for the US president and similarities in style can be observed. Lukashenko has launched the small East European country on a novel path to (supposedly) combat the deadly virus – a cocktail of sport, cold, vodka and saunas. The Belarus government has vetoed lockdowns and social isolation to counter coronavirus, and it is just about the only place in the world that hasn’t discontinued sporting events. The Tokyo Olympics have been canned for 2020 but crowds still flock to football matches in Belarus. The remarkable leader himself, leading by example, recently participated in an ice hockey game. Likewise, the annual victory parade scheduled for May is still all systems go! In addition to spruking sport (and would you believe, “tractor-riding” in the countryside⊞) as antidotes to the virus, the Belarusian president recommends drinking vodka and taking saunas, whilst reassuring Belarusian citizens that God will protect the country from the global pandemic, adding the rider that Belarus’ icy cold climate will also do the job [‘“Reckless” World Leader says vodka and saunas will protect people from coronvirus’, (James Hawkins), The Mirror, 30-Mar-2020, www.mirror.co.uk].

Postscript: Crisis climate – encroaching on democratic rights? 
While the pandemic continues to rage, the politics don’t abate. All countries trying to restrict the movements of their citizens have enacted emergency measures to try to confine the pathogen. Most countries have closed their borders and some have legislated the power to detain people. The fear for advocates of civil liberties is that the more authoritarian states may use the new arrangements to move towards martial law. Regimes cross the globe have enacted new powers, ostensibly to protecting the public, but at the same time with the effect of protecting themselves from public and press scrutiny and accountability [‘”Coronavirus” profound threat to democracy’, (Noah Millman), The Week, 01-Apr-2020, www.theweek.com]. In Hungary the right-wing Orbán government has suspended existing laws, by-passing the parliament to allow president Viktor Orbán to rule by decree (with no end date). Thailand has taken the opportunity to censor the nation’s news media (suing and intimidating journalists who criticise the government’s handling of the crisis). Turkmenistan has taken the unusual approach to the pandemic of banning all use of the word ‘coronavirus’ by it’s citizens and state-controlled media✧. According to Radio Free Europe‘s Turkmenistan watch group, people talking about the virus or wearing masks in public could be arrested by the authoritarian regime which claims to have had no confirmed cases of the virus…as Turkmenistan shares a border with coronavirus-ravaged Iran this claim is viewed from outside with extreme skepticism. President Berdymukhamedov✜, not to be outdone for whacky coronavirus remedies, has recommended inhaling smoke from a burning desert-region plant (Vanguard) [’For Autocrats and Others, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power’, (Selma Gebrekidian), New York Times, 30-Mar- 2020, www.nytimes.com; ‘Coronavirus: The unusual ways countries are managing lockdowns’, BBC News, 01-Apr-2020, www.bbc.co.uk].

🔻 President Berdymukhamedov, safe distancing not on the agenda here! (Photo: AFP/Igor SAFIN)

 

╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍╍

❈ as at 1000 hours, Greenwich M-T, 02-Apr-2020
◘ faced with an overwhelming dose of reality, “Flip-Flop Man” Trump has been forced to pivot 180° away from this…now the White House is acknowledging the health authorities’ dire, nightmarish predictions, (‘US predicts up to 240,000 deaths even with social distancing’, ABC News, 01-Apr-2020, www.abc.net.com.au)
✪ the secular and materialistic lifestyle Trump follows, nay revels in, contrasts conspicuously with the image he tries to sow in the minds of the American public and especially the Religious Right, of him as piously religious
❖ Bolsonaro himself has apparently tested twice for coronavirus but won’t publish the results
❅ including the notorious assertion by Bolsonaro that they “can swim in raw sewerage and not catch a thing” – in effect this is what he is doing to Brazilians with his cavalier policy
⊞ the Belarusian president was quoted as saying: “There, the tractor will heal everyone. The fields heal everyone.” (tractors are apparently something of a fetish item in Belarus!)(‘Belarusian president proposes ‘tractor’ therapy for coronavirus’, Vanguard, 16-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com)
✧ Turkmenistan is ranked by Paris-based RSF (Reporters Without Borders) as the country with the least press freedom in the world
✜ Berdymukhamedov has an exalted status in Turkmenistan, being seen as the Arkadag (protector of the people)

The Fight against the Coronavirus Pandemic: Reflecting on the Numbers

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Geography, Media & Communications, Medical history, Natural Environment, Political geography, Public health,

The war against the coronavirus outbreak is indeed global, infecting to date 199 countries and territories and every continent with the possible exception of (largely and seasonally unpopulated) Antartica. Every day the apps on social media and the news broadcasts inform us of the rising tally of coronavirus cases and of the fatalities, but what we do know is that these totals do not convey a true picture of the populations affected by the virus. They are often an indicator only, a way of charting the trajectory of the elusive curve that every health service and provincial and national government strives to flatten.

Distribution of Covid-19 cases worldwide, 31-Mar-2020 (www.ecdc.europa.eu)

The complexity of the disease partly explains the inexactness. That being infected with coronavirus can be asymptomatic and remains recordable for those never tested, highlights this problem. On a country by country basis the uncertainty over numbers magnifies. Some countries (a lot in Africa for instance) have no or minimal records of testing, which is not the same as saying they have no coronavirus cases! The reason for this might lie in the fact these predominantly impoverished countries have not the wherewithal nor the infrastructure to test even significant numbers of the population, they simply can’t cope. Thus their true numbers are never ascertained. There are other countries in the world who are motivated by reasons other than capacity to report the incidence of infection and mortality, eg, a desire to mask the extent of the calamity for domestic or external purposes.

Geographical distribution of Covid-19 cases worldwide, 31-Mar-2020 (www.ecdc.europa.eu)

The media’s daily servings, the table of virus mortality and morbidity gives us the bare bones of the depth of the human catastrophe — Italy a disaster, Spain a disaster, China a disaster but seemingly over the hump, Iran shockingly bad, France shockingly bad, USA very bad but likely to become even more catastrophic, UK and Netherlands, both worsening, etc. But of equal curiosity is those countries positioned much lower on the ladder of gloom that stand out as demographic anomalies, their numbers almost too good to believe…indeed! Two such are Russia and India. Russia, a vast country with around 145 million people has fessed up to just 17 deaths⋇. On face value a result that would hearten the most pessimistic, but you have to wonder about the level of reportage? India, with 1.3 billion-plus people has so far recorded a mere 32 deaths⋇ (compared to Italy with 60 million people which has lost just shy of 11,600 lives⋇). With India, the lowness of the figure is overshadowed by the inevitability of magnification…the sheer mass of humanity confined within such an acute density of space means that for the substrata of Indians, the poorest classes, no matter how earnestly their prime minister entreats them, they simply cannot physically isolate themselves. The directive from on high to keep a “social distance” from others to ward off the virulent effect of the epidemic remains for the vast masses a pipe dream. That many, many of these unfortunate souls will not escape infection and worse—either recorded or unrecorded—remains inevitable.

At 26-Mar-2020 (Source: Newsweek Statista)

_______________________________________________________________________

⋇ as at 1515 hrs, Greenwich Mean-time, 31st March 2020, ‘Confirmed Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance’, www.worldometers.info/