Global Covid Roundup

In today’s blog we take a quick look at the global picture for COVID. Once again South America has the highest rate per capita of new cases. One key point to note; many of the countries worst hit now are the poorest in the world. As you read this — spare a thought for those countries — and lets all try to do something to encourage international aid to support them.

Lets look at this in table form. Some of the countries on the list have very small populations (Maldives; Bahrain; Costa Rica) — but we can see here Uruguay; Argentina very high on the list

Argentina

Argentina never really bent the curve — as is shown in the chart below. Fatalities per million per day are at an alarming level — on an increasing case load:

To make the point more emphatically — here’s the 1 year trend

Uruguay

Uruguay’s a different story. Seemingly relatively untouched by COVID in 2020 — the current 2021 wave is far more persistent and troubling. Of note however, the population is 4 million. This should be a small enough population to quickly vaccinate, if international assistance can be provided (that’s half the population of Israel).

Brazil

Brazil — is on the same upward trend as Argentina — as we see below — althought interesingly the fatality curve is reducing significantly. That said — in real numbers (not per capita) Brazil is averaging almost 2,000 deaths per day.

India

In line with my intro to this article — did you know India (population 1.4bn) has per capita income of $2,000 per person (as compared to US = $60k). Its impressive that India seems to have bent the curve with that financial constraint.

Although cases for the month of May (to 5–21–21) are 7.3 million and fatalities are 83,000. That’s still an average of over 4,000 deaths per day.

Nepal

I learned something new today(!). Nepal is a country of 28 million people. Perhaps by watching so many Expedition Everest shows I’d assumed a much smaller population.

Nepal’s proximity to India is causing an explosion of cases there. Did you know GDP per capital is just $900 per year. Lets all spare a thought for Nepal — and pray that the country gets the aid it needs to protect its people.

What’s going well

Quite a lot — check out some charts of the best performing countries; including the US and UK — where largescale vaccine rollout is unquestioningly delivering these benefits

UK monthly deaths peaked at 33,000 in January — and thus far in May are 200. That’s another amazing record of success.

Let's share our success and vaccines — and mobilize international resources to the current, worst hit, locations around the world that may lack the capacity and ability to do this themselves.

Originally published at http://jf-insights.com on May 22, 2021.