[Corona Stats] 6 April: Positive news from almost all severely affected countries

Encouraging news regarding the corona crisis is coming from almost all of the hard-hit countries.

In Italy, at the height of the crisis, 15 days ago, 6557 new corona infections were registered, which was 4316 yesterday.

In Spain, the number of new infections decreased from 8271 ten days ago to 6969 new infections yesterday.

The number of new infections also fell in the United States: from 34,196 on Saturday to 25,316 yesterday. This is remarkable given the stage of the corona crisis in which the United States finds itself. The number of new infections rose in the United Kingdom.

The chart above shows countries with more than 10,000 registered corona infections. The United States with 336,830 on top, South Korea with 10,284 last.

Something special is going on with this graph. There are no new countries on the list. The corona crisis started in China, then South Korea, then Iran, Italy, the rest of Southern Europe, then Western Europe, then United Kingdom, then the United States. And after that?

How is it that a country like Switzerland (8.7 million inhabitants) still has considerably more infections (21,100) than India (4298, 1.4 billion inhabitants)? Other large countries such as Japan (3654), Pakistan (3277), Indonesia (2273), Mexico (2143), Egypt (1173) and Nigeria (232) are also showing low numbers for the time being.

There is fear of a disaster in Africa, but it is not yet going to happen. It could be related to the population structure in Africa, which is characterized by large numbers of young people - the average age in Africa is 19.7 years against 42.5 years in Europe (in Italy it is 47.3 years). The most vulnerable to the coronavirus are cited as obese old people who smoke and already have other conditions such as heart disease, lung disease or diabetes. There are relatively few people who meet this profile in Africa. For most African countries, the level of prosperity and the state of health care means that many people do not reach old age, and people in poor health at all.

Also noteworthy is the extent to which the corona crisis has spread to the countries of Southeast Asia. Malaysia (3662), Indonesia (2273), Thailand (2220), Singapore (1309), Vietnam (241), Cambodia (114), Myanmar (21) and Laos (11) have so far been relatively mildly affected. Not a single person was killed by corona in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.

Difficult to draw conclusions but I come to three possibilities: either there is little or no testing in these countries, or registrations of infections and deaths are deliberately misreported, or there is good news. For the time being I tend to the latter.

The northeastern United States has been hard hit by the corona crisis. If the trend continues, New York State will have more corona infections today than Italy.

The magnitude of the corona crisis in the United States manifests itself emphatically when we show the number of registered corona infections per million inhabitants. New York State has 6309 cases per million inhabitants, in Spain there are 2816 corona infections per million inhabitants, in Belgium 1699 and in the Netherlands 1042.

The trend in the number of registered new corona deaths generally follows the trend in the number of new corona infections at some distance in time, after all, people first become infected and then die - whether or not - later.

Encouraging news here too. We are the first to look at predecessor Italy. There, the number of new corona deaths fell from 919 ten days ago to 525 yesterday. In Spain, the number of new corona deaths fell from 961 four days ago to 694 yesterday.

Remarkably, the number of new corona deaths in the United States also declined, but for the time being it is too early to say that the corona crisis has also peaked there.

The most compelling figure to express how severely affected countries are by the corona crisis is the number of corona deaths per million inhabitants. The worst hit was Spain with 270 corona deaths per million inhabitants, followed by Italy (263). The seven worst affected countries are all European.

Statistically, the coronavirus is becoming increasingly deadly.

Currently, 12.3 percent of all registered corona cases die in Italy. Two weeks ago, this figure was 9.3 percent for Italy. Other countries are also showing an increase in mortality rates. In Spain, the mortality rate rose from 6.1 to 9.6 percent in two weeks, in the United Kingdom from 3.9 to 10.3 percent.

The Netherlands is in third place, the corona mortality rate went from 4.9 percent two weeks ago to 9.9 percent yesterday. The death rate in Germany is only 1.6 percent. In short: more than six times as many people who are infected with the coronavirus die in the Netherlands as in Germany.

That is, from people who are registered as corona infected. The intensity with which tests are taken has a major influence on these figures. If a lot is tested, a lot of infections are also registered, something that automatically leads to lower mortality rates. Relatively little is tested in the Netherlands, and relatively much in Germany.

Depending on how much is tested, it is estimated that the actual number of corona infections may be up to ten times higher than recorded.

Source:

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus