WHAT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT THING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC?
Theo Pavlidis

I share the view that the most significant thing about the pandemic is that it exposed the United States as a dysfunctional country that did an extremely poor job in defending its people against this natural disaster. There have been several published articles on this issue. The first one I saw is

“Coronavirus Makes America Seem Like a Civilization in Decline” by Noah Smith in Bloomberg Opinion on March 29, 2020, 8:00 AM EDT. Subtitled “The Covid-19 crisis is another example of the nation’s inability to effectively respond to pressing challenges.” A quote from the article: “No advanced nation has responded as poorly. Returning it to glory will require cultivating a sense of national solidarity that crosses racial lines while rooting out the entrenched power of special interests.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-29/coronavirus-makes-america-seem-like-a-civilization-in-decline?cmpid=BBD033020_OUS&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=200330&utm_campaign=openamericas

The latest (and quite thorough) is
“We Are Living in a Failed State” by George Packer in a preview of the June 2020 issue of The Atlantic magazine. S
ubtitled “The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/ 

These views can be contrasted with the view held by several politicians as well as demonstrators in several American cities that the severity of the pandemic has been exaggerated. So how serious an ailment is an infection by the Coronavirus? I have constructed a table showing the number of deaths per million (dpm) for different countries or other geographical areas. Unfortunately, it is hard to get reliable data. I have relied on worldometer (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) data that I have checked against data published in newspapers and other sources. I have excluded countries and areas where there was too big a discrepancy among sources. See https://www.worldometers.info/about/ for background information. In the case of New York State, I list the lowest and the highest numbers that I found. It turns out that the higher number includes deaths that were, according to authorities, probably due to coronavirus. Because the dpm varies so much from country to country[TP1] , the rankings are fairly robust (see the note next to the table).

The death rate varies a lot, from almost 1 in 1000 (for New York State) down to 1 in 3 million (for Taiwan). Are we talking about the same affliction? Indeed, we are. The big variable is the response of each country or state. Imposing a severe social distancing early on and having widely available test kits does the trick.

This is the case with South Korea and the other Asian countries at the end of the list. The Confucian culture that encourages obedience to the state also helped. German culture also encourages such an obedience and that explains the relatively low number for that country; about one sixth that of France.

The Scandinavian countries offer another example. All, except Sweden, imposed severe social distancing and their rates are much lower (by factors between 2.5 and 9) than those of Sweden.

An article in The Atlantic by Todd S. Purdum describes in detail the California case where the early imposition of social distancing resulted in a very low death rate. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-california-gavin-newsom/610006/)

In short, early severe social distancing (and availability of test kits) can cut the death rate by a factor of 50 or more. So, we should not ask how serious the epidemic is but how serious the government of a country is in fighting the epidemic. That conclusion shows how off the mark the current protests are.

Note: I am grateful to Eugene Joseph for recommending the article by George Packer.

 

 

Ranking of several countries and some of the U.S. states
according to the number of deaths per million (dpm) caused by the Coronavirus.

 

While there is uncertainty about the exact number of deaths in a country, it is unlikely to affect the order for countries that are far apart in the rankings.

Let us assume that the actual number of deaths is at most twice the number given and that an overcount is unlikely. If a country has the hypothetical maximum it may overtake a country ahead of it (in number of deaths per million) that has an accurate count. For example, the U.S. may move ahead of U.K. but not ahead of France.

In short, the table gives an accurate picture of the relative performance of different countries in dealing with the pandemic.

 

Country or State

Deaths per million

Hypothetical Maximum

New York

740 - 933

n/a

 

 

 

Belgium

490

980

New Jersey

473

946

Spain

454

908

Italy

390

780

Connecticut

315

630

France

302

604

Michigan

240

480

United Kingdom

237

474

 

 

 

Sweden

152

304

United States

122

244

Pennsylvania

97

194

Washington

86

172

 

 

 

Denmark                

61

122

Germany                

55

110

Austria 

50

100

Canada

42

84

 

 

 

Norway

30

60

California

30

60

Israel

20

40

Finland

17

34

 

 

 

Utah

9

18

S. Korea

5

10

 

 

 

Hong Kong

0.5

1

Taiwan

0.3

0.6

 


 [TP1]