The Covid-19 crisis continues.
Yes, it is growing worse in some respects, at least globally. This, even while, paradoxically, it is getting better in some areas.
How does that work?
Well, for the first time in weeks, a country in Europe began to open itself up again. Businesses and shops opened up in Austria, on a limited basis. Whether or not everything will stay open, even on that limited basis, is based in part on how the citizens of Austria respond, and whether or not Covid-19 cases do not spike up.
There are other countries in Europe that are thinking of doing the same thing, including Germany. Germany is an interesting case, because on many levels, their preparations for a crisis – not necessarily this one, but a more general sense of being prepared for things for the inevitable rainy day - clearly benefited the nation. They are not drowning in national debt, and they in fact have more general funds to handle this crisis than many other countries do. They also took this crisis seriously, and have more generally taken the idea of facing a crisis more seriously. In other words, they did not elect leaders that dismantled the pandemic team, like we did here in the United States.
That said, Germany has been hit quite hard by Covid-19. Yet even here, they seem to be a bit different than other major nations. They have the fifth most amounts of coronavirus cases in the world, with over 132,000. This ranks well behind other European countries, particularly France, Italy, and especially Spain, and each of those countries have significantly smaller populations than Germany does. Yet, Germany has but a fraction of the total deaths from Covid-19 that those countries have seen. To date, Germany has suffered around 3,500 deaths, while France has seen well over 15,000 dead, Spain has seen over 18,000, and Italy has over 21,000 dead.
The United States has well over 600,000 infected, which is to say more than one-quarter of the confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. They also have seen more deaths from Covid-19 than any other country, with over 26,000. All of that is the bad news, of course. The good news is that there may be some indication that the states with the most extreme cases, particularly here in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, may be leveling off.
However, there are fears that the global pandemic is about to hit many third world countries, who are not as well prepared as wealthy western democracies are to handle this crisis. As much pain as this has caused in those countries, it could prove to be infinitely worse in poorer nations that lack modern medical facilities and supplies.
For example, India keeps climbing up on the list in terms of the most confirmed cases. It was outside of the top twenty nations in the list that nobody wants to be on, at number 22 just days ago, last time that I had checked. But it is now number 19, which is still fairly low, for now. But it seems sure to climb in the country with the second largest population in the world, and where many citizens live in close proximity to each other. To date, India now has over 11,500, with nearly 400 dead. But those numbers seem sure to climb.
But there are other countries that are even poorer than India, and who may see the numbers of infected climb, for similar reasons to India.
Indeed, what happens when poor countries start getting hit hard by Covid-19? It seems like they will inevitably get hit by it, even if they got hit later, and not quite as hard, at least to date. Again, it took a long time for African nations to see their first coronavirus cases. But some of those countries have now seen significant numbers of infected within their national borders. Keny has over 200. Senegal has nearly 300. Guinea and Djibouti have even more cases, and Nigeria has almost 400. Niger and Ivory Coast have even more than that, and South Africa has well over 2,000 cases, with more than two dozen deaths. And northern African countries like Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have some bad numbers, as well.
There are plenty of other nations in regions of the world that have not yet been hit quite as much as the wealthier nations have yet. But some of those countries have still been hit hard. Brazil has over 25,000 confirmed cases, and has suffered over 1,500 deaths. Peru has over 10,000 confirmed cases, while Argentina, Chile and Ecuador also have thousands of active cases. And many Asian nations have managed to avoid getting hit hard to this point, but remain a major source of concern for experts regarding the future of this pandemic. Again, a nation like Bangladesh, which has a huge population, and where many of the people live in close quarters to others, is not conducive to social distancing, and not well-equipped to handle a major outbreak without the kinds of modern facilities that richer nations have.
So while some nations in western Europe and in eastern Asia have or are coming close to having a relative return to normal – if indeed such a thing is even possible – this pandemic very well may continue as it spreads to poorer nations. That will assure that the tragedy will continue, and it will also reveal, once again, how much wealth seems to play a role in such tragedies. If the Covid-19 crisis has already revealed some ugly truths about wealth inequality within the United States in particular, then the same will likely become more glaringly obvious around the world, as the Covid-19 crisis begins to reach Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, India, and other impoverished Asian nations. That may be especially true now, with American President Trump having just pulled essential funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) just yesterday, as he continues to take action that seems almost guaranteed to make the coronavirus crisis even worse, and to cost more people their lives.
Opinion: The Global Coronavirus Crisis Is Poised to Get Much, Much Worse By The Editorial Board, April 13, 2020:
What happens when the pandemic strikes nations of millions of people that have only a half-dozen ventilators?
Crisis Gives Germany Sense of Vindication for ‘Black Zero’ by Catherine Bosley and Birgit Jennen, April 14, 2020:
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