Dear Reader:

* About Numbers: there are currently 4,310,248 Covid-19 infection cases- but no, this is not the number of global infection cases, it is the number of people tested positive for the infection. There are many more infected people that were not tested, in each and every country. Also, there are false positives and reporting inaccuracies, more so in some areas and countries than in others.

There are currently 290,441 global Covid-19 deaths- but no, this is not the number of global Covid-19 deaths. Many Covid-19 deaths are not reported, more so in some countries than others. Plenty of people die outside of hospitals, the cause of death never determined and the death itself not recorded. When the cause of death is determined and recorded, there are people who die of Covid-19 but are listed as having died from other diseases, and there are people who die of other diseases but recorded as having died of Covid-19.

There are people who indirectly die because of Covid-19: people who postpone going to a hospital for fear of dying there from Covid-19,  then die at home (or in the hospital, getting there too late) from cardiovascular diseases, cancer and other diseases.

* “closed cases” means cases of people tested positive for Covid-19, and then either died or recovered. Let’s look at the percentages of people dying out of those tested positive in different countries (worldometer) from highest percentage to the lowest. For every country, I will add in parenthesis  the percentage of people over 65 in that country (Wikipedia: List of countries by age structure):

Norway 87.5% (16.8%), Sweden 40% (19.9%), Belgium 39% (18.6%), France 32% (19.7%), USA 24% (15.4%), Italy 22% (23%), Brazil 15% (8.6%), Canada 13% (17%), Nigeria 14% (2.8%), Spain 13% (19.4%), Kenya 12% (2.7%), India 9% (6%), China 6% (10.6%), Denmark 6% (19.7%), Finland 6% (21.2%), Germany 5% (21.5%), Israel 2% (11.7%), Australia 2% (15.5%), Thailand 2% (11.4%),Sierra Leon 2% (2.5%).

My notes:

1. Testing capacity, health care quality and reporting accuracy is lesser in underdeveloped countries than in developed countries.

2. When a country is significantly more populated than another, and has significantly fewer Covid-19 cases, it is difficult to compare the two in regard to percentage of deaths. For example, Norway has 87.5% deaths compared to Sweden’s 40%. But  Norway’s 87.5% equals 224 deaths while Sweden’s 40% equals 3,313 deaths. Comparisons of percentages then should be done between countries of similar size populations.

3. Within countries with better reporting accuracy, the higher population density, the higher the infection rate and the higher the death rate. Within same countries, the higher the percentage of older people (and the higher percentage of older people living in nursing homes), the higher the death rate— More on this point, later.

anita