Introductory thoughts
US has most cases, but nearly 400 million inhabitants.
Currently 6,114,500 adding 44,600 per day or
18472 cases per million and 117.1 new cases per million
Not reporting testing data to WHO, ~345,000 tests per day or 0.895 per thousand. More tests than any other country, but not a high rate per capita
8.18% positive
Positivity
Peru 53% 2800 test per day or 0.088 per thousand
Brazil 51 32,800 0.156
Mexico 30 9275 0.073
France 20 8031 0.119
Qatar 17 5000 1.8
Chile 17 25,000 1.27
Bangladesh 16 9000 0.009
Nigeria 15 1640 0.073
Sweden 13 12,150 1.203
Ghana 12 1700 0.057
Pakistan 11
Iran 11
S. Africa 10
Saudi Arabia 7.7
India 7.3
Singapore 5.5
UK 5.1
Turkey 5.1
Canada 3.2
Germany 2.5
Russia 2.4
Italy 2.1
Norway 2.0
Iceland 2.0
Greece 1.9
Estonia 1.9
Thailand 1.6
S. Korea 1.1
Australia 0.44
New Zealand 0.39
False Positive rate in Peru vs Brazil
Peru using a rapid antibody test. Likely false positive rate > 10%. 663,437 cases reported (2% of population). If 4% of the population has had COVID – 1,280,000. Suppose of the 3 M tested, the risk is high and 12% should have a positive test – 360,000 and 2,640,000 a negative test. But with a 10% error rate, 36,000 of the true positives will have a false negative, and 264,000 of the true negatives will have a false positive. Therefore the true positives are probably less than 400,000 of those tested
3 million tests - equivalent to 9.1% However, there could really be 1.5 million cases, that is about 5% of the population. That is still 40,000 per million, putting Peru in second place behind Qatar.
Brazil reports 18,500 cases per million, but has tested only 300 people per million per day, as compared to Denmark – over 6000. Brazil’s total testing is less than 2 M, or less than 1% of the population. So even though there test is more accurate than Peru, they have likely missed most cases. There high positivity rate is due to most testing being done on very symptomatic people. Even many individuals hospitalized with obvious COVID symptoms never get tested. Peru’s case numbers are gradually dropping, even with a high false positive rate. Brazil likely has the highest case rate per capita, even higher than Argentina, even though Argentina is reporting a much higher case growth: 3180 new cases per million in the last 2 weeks.
Israel has the highest reported case rate over the last two weeks at 4574 per million, but in reality is testing very highly. Less developed countries adjacent, such as Lebanon and Syria probably have much higher rates in reality and certainly India is only testing a fraction of who needs to be tested. India probably has the fastest growth in September, but reports only 878 cases per million in the last 2 weeks, Argentina at 3184. Argentina is now testing 0.42 tests per 1000 people per day. India at 0.77 is now testing at twice that rate. India was below Argentina as recently as Aug 6, so India has a lot of catching up to do; plus the way they suddenly shutdown caused a huge spread in rural areas, where testing is minimal. For comparison, the US is 2.38, Denmark 6.74 tests per 1000 per day.
The countries to do the most testing early on in March were Iceland and Norway (small populations) and Germany (huge initial testing capacity and first to develop a test). In April Russia and Qatar had almost caught up to these three and were well ahead of the US for a long time. By Apr 12, Denmark was in second place. New Zealand was in 4th place by the end of March, but then they had eradicated the virus and did not need to test much thereafter, until 11 cases were declared a second wave. The recent spikes in Australia necessitated increased testing and put them in second place, behind Denmark, which has been in first place since July 31. Iceland is so isolated and isolated cases early, so does less testing now.
Like the US, the UK is having a serious problem doing adequate testing and it is taking even longer there to get results. So like here, contract tracing is minimal and difficult, so the virus is spreading much faster there, although not as bad as Spain and France.
The virus is spreading rapidly in the Middle East as attested to by those wealthy countries that have high counts: Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. Saudi Arabia has had high counts earlier. Therefore we must assume that the cases are rapidly spreading rapidly in Iraq and probably neighboring Jordan. There is no way to know what is happening in Syria or Yemen and Ethiopia and Eritrea probably have many more cases than reported. There are a lot of cases in neighboring Djibouti and Egypt. Reports from Iran indicate that they are only reporting 1/3 of their actual cases to the WHO.
Rate of testing vs total cases:
Reed College 8 cases, but 100% testing – student body of 1400
U of O 55 cases, but only symptomatic and those in dorms – over 22,000
25 members of India Parliament have tested positive for COVID. This is not a representative sample of the population of India. MP’s should be at lower risk, therefore it is likely that more than 3% are infected, since 3% of the Parliament is already infected. That would be about 43 M, but only 4.85 M cases have been identified.
Many countries have huge infection rates but few deaths, either due to lack of testing, but in the Middle East and Africa, because most of the population is under 25. This is true for large parts of Latin America to a lesser extent, but diabetes and other risk factors are causing a lot of deaths in Latin America, where medical services, especially in rural areas are limited. So the death rate per capita is reflective of how hard hit a country is and indirectly how hard the economy of that country will be hit by COVID patients being too ill to work.
Several states in Mexico have now also addressed the obesity epidemic, as it is a high risk factor for death from COVID. Mexico has had 70,000 deaths or deaths per million.
Deaths per million San Marino 1179
2) Peru 887
3) Belgium 854
4) Andorra 685
5) Spain 624
6) UK 611
7) Chile 592
8) Italy 587
9) Brazil 577 suspect much higher
10) Sweden 576
11) USA 558
12) Mexico 506
13) France 469
14) Panama 467 likely missing data
15) Sint Maarten 443
16) Bolivia 437
17) Columbia 394
18) Ecuador 372
19) Netherlands 363
20) Ireland 360
So many states in Mexico are now banning the sale of junk food and sugared beverages to minors
Cover-up: Zimbabwe saying they have few cases, yet a friend of mine runs the only ICU still operating in Harare. It is packed and there are many other COVID patients in the main hospital. Emmerson Mnangagwa has not curtailed the rampant corruption of Mugabe.
New Cases per million:
- Turks & Caicos 1214
- Aruba 1002
- Maldives 359
- Guam 308
- Israel 258
- Bahrain 233
- Argentina 206
- Brazil 201
- Spain 194
- Costa Rica 192
- Columbia 174
- Kuwait 164 Kuwait is better at reporting than Iran or Iraq
- French Polynesia 163
- Cape Verde 154
- Peru 154
- Bahamas 150
- Gibraltar 148
- Sint Maarten 140
- USA 135
- Panama 132 minimal testing
Small islands that are popular vacation spots are now seeing rapid spread among locals, also more recent testing available. Most have younger populations, so death is less frequent. However, diabetes and obesity are creating complications.
Family Farm Alliance voices concern that US food supply is inadequately coming from US farms. Same is true of clothing and to some extent the construction supplies for shelter. Travel across the US last year showed huge amounts of corn that is grown for fuel and pig and cattle feed. Most swine and soybeans are for export. Little cotton is grown in the south, now it is trees, making it no longer viable to harvest trees in Oregon and Washington. As COVID spreads across the globe, there will be huge amounts of hunger as supply lines fall apart and farm workers get sick. Not only do we have a moral obligation for those living in poverty and the sudden worldwide increase in food insecurity, but much of our food comes from the Latin American countries that are currently being hit the hardest.
The progress on dealing with global poverty and food insecurity in developing countries has been set back 20 years due to the pandemic and disruption of supply chains, especially food. (Bill Gates)
Perhaps another time, interview re causes of obesity- epigenetics and microbiome not “will power.”