ON: POLITICIZING CV19 MORTALITY DATA

Let’s take a quick look at how this pandemic is going world wide late in May 2020. .  Too many pundits and media outlets have taken to misrepresenting—politicizing—the sad death toll to further their own agenda.  This happens both on the left and the right.

Any time a pundit, media or columnist  presents mortality data as raw numbers you can be sure they are looking to hoodwink you or are motivated by a political agenda   The only meaningful way to make a comparison of mortality rates such as between countries or states is to examine the numbers per unit population.

Τhere is wide diversity in these values and there are probably many reasons for the variations observed.  The density of the population, age distribution (older populations are more vulnerable), general health, availability of care, how fast and effective  the original shut down took place, the number of nursing home patients, how effective was social distancing, is the nation a center of tourism, industry, or a world transportation hub?  etc. etc. But perhaps we might be able to tease some valuable information from these figures if we at least examine them in such as way as when the most prominent variable—total population—is accounted for.  One can not compare death rates in the UK  with its 60 million to the USA with more than five times that number at  320 million!

As of May 20, 2020. The USA is listed with the highest total deaths out of the world death figure (326,000).  At this date (May 20)USA has suffered 94,000 mortalities from the pandemic.  The next highest is the UK with 35,000 total deaths due to Cv19. . Youcan review these sad figures in many sites.

But when we look at those numbers relative to the size of the population, the figures are quite different.  In deaths per million population the USA has suffered 286 citizen deaths.

But that value is not the highest!

Deaths/Million Population
Belgium 800
Spain 600
UK 532
Italy 532
France 418
Sweden 376
Netherlands 333
Ireland 322
USA 286
Switzerland 222

What might cause the differences?  These are all nations with top of the line medical care—most have universal health care.  They are modern democratic industrialized nations, As noted above there must be many variables that may in part explain the differences such as population age, when, how and how effective was closing down the nation and its social distancing, how intimately was it tied to China and tourists and workers arriving from that nation—the source of the virus...etc. etc etc.

But it is clear that the USA does not have the worst record—as some in the media would have it.  Attempting to claim that we or our leaders are or were doing something wrong they often tout the raw data of deaths.  But in fact Sweden and Ireland have a greater number of deaths per unit population than we do.

It is noteworthy that Sweden, has the highest deaths/million population of the Nordic nations. It is up there with the central EU counties with close to 400 deaths per million.  Perhaps the reason is that Sweden chose NOT  to shut down its industries,  businesses, gyms and pubs and close its schools most of which remained open. But that strategy does not seem to have improved its numbers much at all.  Other nordic nations such as Denmark (95)*,  Finland (55), Norway (44)  all shut down businesses and schools and had much lower *deaths per million levels.

Germany, with about 96 per million is an exception worth noting. It’s response —strict shutdown—closures—and its0penchant for structure and conformity —was similar to the Nordic countries and has similar numbers.  Then too the pandemic seemed to strike a much younger demographic in Germany. Many were young healthy  skiers returning from trips to the Italian Alps where they contracted the disease. That may have kept their numbers lower at first. But strict social distancing and closures helped too.  Germany also reports its cases differently as well reporting only deaths which are confirmed as cv19 related if post mitten tests so indicate.