MWBATL
Helluva Engineer
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An interesting side note about deaths in this pandemic in various countries.
Having been to quite a few third world countries and having seen first hand the living conditions, sanitation, medical facilities (or lack thereof) and population densities in places like the Philippines and Indonesia etc, I was wondering why the death totals in those locations were so much lower than the US or Western Europe, which have MUCH better medical systems.
It then dawned on me. Western Europe and the US have much longer average life expectancies compared to those third world countries. (Like basically 80 years in the west to roughly 70 years in third world countries). Given that this virus attacks the elderly in such large numbers with an AVERAGE age of mortality of 80 or higher.....I did a face palm when I realized the folks who would be killed by the Wuhan virus in those countries.....were already dead. They had died of "old age" or other causes 10 years ago (on average).
I am sure that poor reporting also contributes to the disparities, but I think we continuously fail to understand that this virus is mostly deadly to the very old or the very infirm.
Maybe everyone else already realized this, but I hadn't until I began looking at the numbers. If I had the time I'd put together a table comparing Chinese Virus death rates to Average Life Expectancy, and I think you'd see a very strong correlation.
There are (of course) some notable exceptions, which are countries that have already been mentioned as having done superb jobs of contact tracing, but using methods which may US citizens would find highly invasive. (South Korea and Taiwan, most notably).
Having been to quite a few third world countries and having seen first hand the living conditions, sanitation, medical facilities (or lack thereof) and population densities in places like the Philippines and Indonesia etc, I was wondering why the death totals in those locations were so much lower than the US or Western Europe, which have MUCH better medical systems.
It then dawned on me. Western Europe and the US have much longer average life expectancies compared to those third world countries. (Like basically 80 years in the west to roughly 70 years in third world countries). Given that this virus attacks the elderly in such large numbers with an AVERAGE age of mortality of 80 or higher.....I did a face palm when I realized the folks who would be killed by the Wuhan virus in those countries.....were already dead. They had died of "old age" or other causes 10 years ago (on average).
I am sure that poor reporting also contributes to the disparities, but I think we continuously fail to understand that this virus is mostly deadly to the very old or the very infirm.
Maybe everyone else already realized this, but I hadn't until I began looking at the numbers. If I had the time I'd put together a table comparing Chinese Virus death rates to Average Life Expectancy, and I think you'd see a very strong correlation.
There are (of course) some notable exceptions, which are countries that have already been mentioned as having done superb jobs of contact tracing, but using methods which may US citizens would find highly invasive. (South Korea and Taiwan, most notably).