Why the broad disparity in death rates from COVID-19? The variation in health care systems cannot account for this vast (four and even fivefold) difference. The worst performing countries (double digit deaths as a percentage of reported cases) are all modernized. Is there a problem in the number of reported cases? Perhaps someone with a better understanding than I of the data (as of 10 April: [worldometers.info] ) can provide an explanation?
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29 comments (26 - 29)
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Odds are that the disparities are due to cultural differences.
wordywalt
Level 9
Apr 11, 2020
0
Perhaps. But having lived in Europe for a number of years, I just don't see the differences as being a matter of life and death, as they would appear to be in the case of COVID-19. Why should it be that Portugal and Germany have a relatively low death rate, compared with their six neighbors (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and the UK)? Something is amiss here, and I want to know why!
It comes from a number of things.
Do you test people in hospital, but not elsewhere? In that case the actual infection rate will be higher than your tests indicate, and the number of deaths as a proportion of that figure lower.
Is the pandemic rapidly engulfing your nation? It might take three weeks for someone to actually die - so the DEATHS are from the level of infection THREE WEEKS AGO. If infection rates are rapidly climing, this will lessen the apparent death percentage (which is actually people who fell ill three weeks ago) as a proportion of the CURRENT infection rate.
And so on.
In short, there's a hell of a lot going on that make these figures largely fictional unless you know and fully understand ALL THE BACKGROUND.
ToakReon
Level 8
Apr 11, 2020
0
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