First, the basic facts: The virus has killed a fraction of as many people in Africa and Asia — despite their relative lack of resources — as it has in Europe or the U.S:pic.twitter.com/TiSqpSJJCf
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First, the basic facts: The virus has killed a fraction of as many people in Africa and Asia — despite their relative lack of resources — as it has in Europe or the U.S:pic.twitter.com/TiSqpSJJCf
It's "an epidemiological whodunit," as @DrSidMukherjee has written.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/01/why-does-the-pandemic-seem-to-be-hitting-some-countries-harder-than-others …
First: Is it a statistical mirage? Almost certainly not. There is underreporting of deaths in many countries, but not enough to explain the pattern. The data on *overall* mortality in Mumbai and Delhi, for instance, suggests a much lower Covid death rate than in the US.
One factor: Covid is more severe for older people, and the population in much of Africa and Asia is younger than in the U.S. and Europe. But this age pattern also does not seem to be a full explanation for the pattern. Even age-adjusted, Asia's and Africa's tolls look low.
Plausible explanation #2: Daily life tends to better ventilated in warmer, lower-income countries. Covid spreads less easily in these settings than it does in poorly ventilated indoor spaces. (Lesson for the US: Improve ventilation in schools, stores and workplaces.)
Explanation #3: Immunity may vary across countries, because of previous coronaviruses or microbes. “There is a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Salim Abdool Karim, a South African epidemiologist, says, “but there is no smoking gun"...https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-africa-mortality-i/puzzled-scientists-seek-reasons-behind-africas-low-fatality-rates-from-pandemic-idUSKBN26K0AI …
... The large share of asymptomatic infections in India is consistent with this hypothesis, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, a virologist in the southern city of Vellore, says.https://www.ft.com/content/07988f31-d511-4af4-8b78-03ecaf2d4df7 …
Explanation #4: Parts of Africa and Asia have better Covid policy responses than the U.S. “Africa is doing a lot of things right the rest of the world isn’t,” says Gayle Smith, a former Obama administration official....https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-ghana-africa-pandemics-donald-trump-0a31db50d816a463a6a29bf86463aaa9 …
... As with some other explanations, though, this one seems incomplete. Some countries with relatively low death tolls, like India, have not had especially strong policy responses.
The full explanation for the relatively low Covid death toll in most of Africa and Asia remains unclear. Whatever it is, it’s one of the few ways in which Covid has not been as bad as feared. Many people are still alive as a result.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/briefing/oprah-meghan-interview-biden-stimulus-bill.html?action=click&module=Briefings&pgtype=Homepage …
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