List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,816,820 (1,176,025 / 535,238 / 105,557)
Brazil - 499,966 (265,746 / 205,371 / 28,849)
Russia - 396,575 (224,551 / 167,469 / 4,555)
Spain - 286,308 (62,225 / 196,958 / 27,125) 12.1%
United Kingdom - 272,826 (234,106 / 344 / 38,376)
Italy - 232,664 (43,691 / 155,633 / 33,340) 17.6%
France - 188,625 (91,586 / 68,268 / 28,771)
Germany - 183,294 (9,794 / 164,900 / 8,600) 5.0%
India - 181,827 (89,706 / 86,936 / 5,185)
Turkey - 163,103 (31,604 / 126,984 / 4,515) 3.4%
Peru - 155,671 (84,853 / 66,447 / 4,371)
Iran - 148,950 (24,389 / 116,827 / 7,734) 6.2%
Chile - 94,858 (53,430 / 40,431 / 997)
Canada - 90,190 (35,014 / 48,103 / 7,073)
Mexico - 87,512 (15,862 / 61,871 / 9,779) 13.6%
Saudi Arabia - 83,384 (24,021 / 58,883 / 480) 0.8%
China - 83,001 (63 / 78,304 / 4,634) 5.6%
Pakistan - 69,496 (42,742 / 25,271 / 1,483)
Belgium - 58,186 (32,964 / 15,769 / 9,453)
Qatar - 55,262 (29,387 / 25,839 / 36)
Netherlands - 46,257 (40,056 / 250 / 5,951)
Bangladesh - 44,608 (34,623 / 9,375 / 610)
Belarus - 41,658 (23,465 / 17,964 / 229)
Ecuador - 38,571 (16,047 / 19,190 / 3,334)
Sweden - 37,113 (27,747 / 4,971 / 4,395)
Singapore - 34,366 (13,616 / 20,727 / 23)
United Arab Emirates - 33,896 (16,088 / 17,546 / 262)
Portugal - 32,203 (11,621 / 19,186 / 1,396)
South Africa - 30,967 (14,208 / 16,116 / 643)
Switzerland - 30,845 (526 / 28,400 / 1,919) 6.3%
Colombia - 28,236 (20,225 / 7,121 / 890)
Kuwait - 26,192 (15,831 / 10,156 / 205)
Indonesia - 25,773 (17,185 / 7,015 / 1,573)
Ireland - 24,929 (1,189 / 22,089 / 1,651) 7.0%
Poland - 23,571 (11,494 / 11,016 / 1,061)
Egypt - 23,449 (16,843 / 5,693 / 913)
Ukraine - 23,204 (13,197 / 9,311 / 696)
Romania - 19,133 (4,828 / 13,046 / 1,259) 8.8%
Philippines - 17,224 (12,466 / 3,808 / 950)
Israel - 17,012 (1,917 / 14,811 / 284) 1.9%
Dominican Republic - 16,908 (6,853 / 9,557 / 498)
Japan - 16,804 (1,512 / 14,406 / 886) 5.8%
Austria - 16,685 (497 / 15,520 / 668) 4.1%
Argentina - 16,214 (10,898 / 4,788 / 528)
Afghanistan - 14,525 (12,973 / 1,303 / 249)
Panama - 13,018 (3,274 / 9,414 / 330) 3.4%
Denmark - 11,633 (735 / 10,327 / 571) 5.2%
South Korea - 11,468 (793 / 10,405 / 270) 2.5%
Serbia - 11,381 (4,533 / 6,606 / 242)
Kazakhstan - 10,858 (5,600 / 5,220 / 38)
Bahrain - 10,793 (4,950 / 5,826 / 17)
Oman - 10,423 (7,985 / 2,396 / 42)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Oman has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
This smells a bit, from the group billing themselves as 'Alternative SAGE' here in UK. It seems their model works great, but has some fiddle factors in it which one needs to adjust to get the fit to work. The modeller seems OK with the jouno calling this 'immunological dark matter' and suggesting that Germans have more of it than we do.
Something about this reminds me of the multiverse, or the dangers of becoming too invested in ones model to reflect clearly on reality. There were frequent times during my Permanent Head Damage where I got lost in this kind of thing.
Anyway, I'm off to drink my phlogiston and take a few deep breaths of luminiferous aether.
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Nigeria has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Add that to the stack of reports we're all waiting for. Perhaps they think that if they keep finding excuses to release them that we'll forget about them.
Report into disproportionate death rates among BAME communities in the UK has been delayed because of fears it could make racial tensions increase.
Can’t help wondering what’s in it now.
It will highlight the fact that those groups who are affected by poverty, exclusion and other disadvantages have become victims of Covid19 far more than most.
The fact that BAME people are far more likely to have been on the ‘front line’ and unable to work from home.
Report into disproportionate death rates among BAME communities in the UK has been delayed because of fears it could make racial tensions increase.
Can’t help wondering what’s in it now.
It will highlight the fact that those groups who are affected by poverty, exclusion and other disadvantages have become victims of Covid19 far more than most.
The fact that BAME people are far more likely to have been on the ‘front line’ and unable to work from home.
Yep.
There is an interesting scientific question here. Covid-19 appears to be a more severe disease in non-white people. The question is, to what extent this is genetic and to what extent this reflects socioeconomic factors?
My best guess is that it's both. One of these is a modifiable risk factor.
There is even a plausible mechanism, there is some evidence vitamin D is protective, and BAME folk in our area are at higher risk of low levels of vitamin D. If that is the mechanism, it would also be modifiable - genetics are not always destiny.
There is even a plausible mechanism, there is some evidence vitamin D is protective, and BAME folk in our area are at higher risk of low levels of vitamin D. If that is the mechanism, it would also be modifiable - genetics are not always destiny.
True, but I suspect the VitD pathway is not particularly important. OTOH, as you say, it is treatable for those who do not get enough VitD from sunlight exposure.
I think it's more to do with the innate immune system's propensity to being pro-inflammatory. It is the massive inflammatory response to the virus in some people that seems to be the most important process in the pathology of Covid-19.
This is all provisional and when we have better data in a couple of years, some of my pronouncements might look a bit silly.... but I think the genetic differences will be linked to the innate immune system primarily.
Yeah, maybe. But I've got my Asian husband and son on Vitamin D anyway! (And they would both be males, one of them 72 years old--auuuggghhh, the risk factors!)
Yeah, maybe. But I've got my Asian husband and son on Vitamin D anyway! (And they would both be males, one of them 72 years old--auuuggghhh, the risk factors!)
I think that's wise. There's no downside to it and it might be useful. Similar to the ibuprofen thing; for most people there's no downside to avoiding it and it might turn out to be important.
I'm sure you appreciate where I was coming from but still you're taking a sensible approach.
Thank you! We actually all of us in this city, even the palest, go D-deficient for at least four months a year due to the heavy, heavy cloud cover all winter. Makes we wonder how our forebears got by.
There is an interesting scientific question here. Covid-19 appears to be a more severe disease in non-white people. The question is, to what extent this is genetic and to what extent this reflects socioeconomic factors?
My best guess is that it's both. One of these is a modifiable risk factor.
Any single genetic explanation is going to have quite a small role because of the diversity of the origins of the various BAME communities -- it also appears to reflect the effects seen in other health issues e.g people of north Indian ethnicity being affected less than those of Pakistani origin (something that's easier to explain socioeconomically than genetically).
There is an interesting scientific question here. Covid-19 appears to be a more severe disease in non-white people. The question is, to what extent this is genetic and to what extent this reflects socioeconomic factors?
My best guess is that it's both. One of these is a modifiable risk factor.
Any single genetic explanation is going to have quite a small role because of the diversity of the origins of the various BAME communities -- it also appears to reflect the effects seen in other health issues e.g people of north Indian ethnicity being affected less than those of Pakistani origin (something that's easier to explain socioeconomically than genetically).
Possibly. But if you ask the question the other way round, the white, European population is not especially diverse. I.e. I am positing not that the various BAME populations share a genetic factor that makes them more susceptible but rather the white population has a genetic factor that is protective.
I suspect it's more than one thing but in the world of immunology, things like HLA* type conferring risk of specific diseases is well understood. Equally I wouldn't be surprised if there was some variation in the receptor molecule (the cell-surface molecule that the virus binds to in order to infect the cell) that affected susceptibility. Similarly the pathways of the innate immune system are subject to genetic variation.
Conversely, socioeconomic factors also offer a plausible explanation because we know that infective dose is important and in London at least, bus drivers (for example) have been struck down. I don't know, but I reckon that BAME populations are over-represented among bus drivers. Nevermind that socioeconomic status always correlates with general health and the risks of underlying diseases.
So, yeah, I think it's both.
AFZ
*HLA - human leukocyte antigen; this is another really complex area of immunology and I don't want to derail the thread but simply there are multiple types and having some of them has been shown to be associated with specific diseases.
The obvious analogy is to the fact that people of Asian are at a higher risk of diabetes when their BMI is still in the 'healthy' bracket, which is seen as a mix of lifestyle and how they carry body fat. The incidence of haemoglobin disorders is also higher in people of black origin, so given the 'sticky blood' issues some people have had with Covid-19, I wonder if that's one of the avenues the researchers will look at?
Meanwhile my schedule at work is getting populated with conference calls about venues reopening for our screening clinics. As a result I will have to use a fourth different video-calling platform tomorrow. Tbh most of my calls so far have been connected to my busy virtual social life!
But if you ask the question the other way round, the white, European population is not especially diverse. I.e. I am positing not that the various BAME populations share a genetic factor that makes them more susceptible but rather the white population has a genetic factor that is protective.
That would be my first explanation. When data was first coming out about different populations and their risks of death from Covid19 there was a suggestion that after accounting for socio-economic factors that both White European and Chinese had a lower death rate. Which would make a protective genetic factor less likely - why would this be present in two different populations who have had relatively small recent genetic mixing? The report today is suggesting that the lower rate for Chinese populations is not genuine, and that this population is similar to the other non-white, leaving just one population with protective genetic factors. If, indeed, these differences do follow genetic factors.
But if you ask the question the other way round, the white, European population is not especially diverse. I.e. I am positing not that the various BAME populations share a genetic factor that makes them more susceptible but rather the white population has a genetic factor that is protective.
That would be my first explanation. When data was first coming out about different populations and their risks of death from Covid19 there was a suggestion that after accounting for socio-economic factors that both White European and Chinese had a lower death rate. Which would make a protective genetic factor less likely - why would this be present in two different populations who have had relatively small recent genetic mixing? The report today is suggesting that the lower rate for Chinese populations is not genuine, and that this population is similar to the other non-white, leaving just one population with protective genetic factors. If, indeed, these differences do follow genetic factors.
As with all these things, we're all working from preliminary data. The reason I think there will be genetic factors is simply because there always is with viruses. Viruses hijack the host's cell machinery; turning it into a virus factor. At several stages of the life cycle interaction with the hosts biology occurs thus there is always the potential for this interaction to be interrupted. It is generally thought that having Sickle cell trait (rather than the disease itself) is an advantage because it's protective against malaria (not a virus but the principle holds). The other thing is that the pathogenesis of Covid-19 is primarily to do with the immune response. There is a lot of evidence that genetics effect the workings of the immune system.
Whether you can see such genetic variation on a population rather than just an individual level is a different question.
Time will tell, I suspect. However, I would be stunned if socioeconomic factors weren't found to be a major factor. Which is why it's political.
But if you ask the question the other way round, the white, European population is not especially diverse. I.e. I am positing not that the various BAME populations share a genetic factor that makes them more susceptible but rather the white population has a genetic factor that is protective.
Would the white population in the US be more genetically diverse? Enough to matter? I'm wondering because here white people would not only be likely to have forebears who came from all over Europe, many have forebears from other places in the world as well, but are considered white because they look white.
However, I would be stunned if socioeconomic factors weren't found to be a major factor. Which is why it's political.
One thing I read said something along these lines: black people with hypertension in the US carry the eight previous generations of hypertensive black bodies.
Africa has the most genetically diverse population. There would be less diversity as you follow the trail out of Africa. Not sure that recent mixing of Europeans changes that
Africa has the most genetically diverse population. There would be less diversity as you follow the trail out of Africa. Not sure that recent mixing of Europeans changes that
I have no idea if it would. I'm just wondering. White Americans aren't all as European as they look or think themselves to be. But maybe not enough to make a difference.
Here's the work on disparities in outcomes in different groups done by Public Health England (pdf).
This quote is from the executive summary:
An analysis of survival among confirmed COVID-19 cases and using more detailed
ethnic groups, shows that after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and
region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death than people
of White British ethnicity. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean
and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared
to White British.
These analyses did not account for the effect of occupation, comorbidities or obesity.
These are important factors because they are associated with the risk of acquiring
COVID-19, the risk of dying, or both. Other evidence has shown that when
comorbidities are included, the difference in risk of death among hospitalised patients is
greatly reduced.
(Emphasis mine)
More to know but this does (potentially) support a genetic predisposition in different population groups - especially as different ethnic groups have different outcomes and it's not simply a case of white / non-white. Equally, it might be that there are confounders here that once accounted for, the difference disappears. I don't think so - I think there is a genetic effect but we don't know for sure yet.
I'll try to read the report properly at some point and add anything else that would be helpful to the discussion.
There may be biological reasons for the difference in men and women, they have different autoimmune responses, for instance. That’s the reason women are more likely to get autoimmune disorders such as lupus. There are also different responses to heart and circulatory disorders due to hormones.
Why are men so much more likely to die of Covid19 than women, independent of age? In many places it’s more than twice the rate.
It's a fair point. I don't think there's any doubt that being male is a major risk factor. I haven't seen if this is related to the much higher rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in men or not. The relationship between male gender and CVD is well established and probably has a lot to do with the differences in fat deposition between the genders. There also is a clear link between Covid-19 risk and CVD. That might be the whole explanation. Or there might be other factors as well.
Plus most COVID deaths are elderly people and women tend to die later than men. So I suspect that in any infection circumstance or none at all, a man of 74 (e.g. me) is more likely to be dead in a week than a woman of 74 (definitely NOT my wife who lurks on this ship and sometimes checks my posts).
Plus most COVID deaths are elderly people and women tend to die later than men. So I suspect that in any infection circumstance or none at all, a man of 74 (e.g. me) is more likely to be dead in a week than a woman of 74 (definitely NOT my wife who lurks on this ship and sometimes checks my posts).
Yes, so - there being more elderly women than men to start with, that makes the statistics even more alarming for men.
Should there not be extra protections for men due to this very high difference in death rates?
More to know but this does (potentially) support a genetic predisposition in different population groups - especially as different ethnic groups have different outcomes and it's not simply a case of white / non-white. Equally, it might be that there are confounders here that once accounted for, the difference disappears.
I know you are adding the caveat above, but British Bangladeshis have also long had a notably higher rate of poverty than other ethnic groups in the UK.
I'm not averse to genetic explanations, but there's also a history of them being used to excuse other failings.
More to know but this does (potentially) support a genetic predisposition in different population groups - especially as different ethnic groups have different outcomes and it's not simply a case of white / non-white. Equally, it might be that there are confounders here that once accounted for, the difference disappears.
I know you are adding the caveat above, but British Bangladeshis have also long had a notably higher rate of poverty than other ethnic groups in the UK.
I'm not averse to genetic explanations, but there's also a history of them being used to excuse other failings.
You're not wrong about genetics being used as an excuse.
I haven't read the report or looked at the data but the part I quoted described correcting for deprivation.
Also social conventions mean that the gender split in who is working does vary in different ethnic groups. If you come from a culture where the men are more likely to work, and in more exposed jobs such as public transport or as hospital staff at that, then their risk increases.
There has been a big row in Italy about whether the virus is weakening. Globally the numbers of new cases diagnosed daily has been increasing during the last week. A major contributor to that has been the massive numbers of new cases in Brazil, which have exceeded the continuing massive numbers of new cases in the USA.
But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
I can't find any reported evidence that the virus is evolving into a less lethal form. Is there anything along those lines? It would be good news if true, but assertions that it is happening if it isn't are very dangerous.
There has been a big row in Italy about whether the virus is weakening. Globally the numbers of new cases diagnosed daily has been increasing during the last week. A major contributor to that has been the massive numbers of new cases in Brazil, which have exceeded the continuing massive numbers of new cases in the USA.
But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
I can't find any reported evidence that the virus is evolving into a less lethal form. Is there anything along those lines? It would be good news if true, but assertions that it is happening if it isn't are very dangerous.
Thank you for asking about this, @Barnabas62, I’ve been wondering as well.
There has been a big row in Italy about whether the virus is weakening. Globally the numbers of new cases diagnosed daily has been increasing during the last week. A major contributor to that has been the massive numbers of new cases in Brazil, which have exceeded the continuing massive numbers of new cases in the USA.
But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
I can't find any reported evidence that the virus is evolving into a less lethal form. Is there anything along those lines? It would be good news if true, but assertions that it is happening if it isn't are very dangerous.
This came up at a WHO press conference recently. They said probably not true.
@WHO asked about a report from Italy suggesting #Covid19 may be losing potency. Both @mvankerkhove & @DrMikeRyan warn that it is unlikely the virus has changed; changes in human behavior have lessened its capacity to spread. "We need to be realistic & driven by facts" — Ryan.
@doctorsoumya notes that genetic sequences of #SARSCoV2 viruses are constantly being assessed. To date there is no evidence of important changes in the virus's behavior. #COVID19
There was a recent article in New Scientist addressing the issue of the evolution of viruses and coronavirus in particular. In summary, although there are logical reasons why you would expect it to mutate to become less lethal, it might not; and at the moment there isn't enough data to be able to tell.
Thanks Croesos, I'd missed that. A pity of course. Given the spotty and imperfect human response, some natural weakening would have been very welcome. But it looks as though we're still up the creek.
One difficulty with men is the greater tendency in some toward risky behaviors, including with COVID, which I have observed, lo! within my very house! I don't know how you'd sift that out of an analysis, though.
Johnson’s darkest hour, his decision to essentially prioritise
Cummings over the pandemic response, had at least three
immediate effects. First and foremost, it seriously damaged
public trust and goodwill in complying with lockdown measures,
risking a deadlier next wave of infection. Second, it belittled
staff and patients who have risen to complex logistic, clinical
and personal challenges while delivering care. Third, it forced the government’s scientific advisers into open dissent.
I'm a little bit bemused by the case of Alok Sharma. Surely -- assuming track and trace is in operation -- he'd have self isolated and self reported yesterday, and all the MPs he met would now be self-isolating and getting tested too ?
They wouldn't be waiting on his test results to work out whether or not they should be self-isolating and getting tested?
I'm a little bit bemused by the case of Alok Sharma. Surely -- assuming track and trace is in operation -- he'd have self isolated and self reported yesterday, and all the MPs he met would now be self-isolating and getting tested too ?
They wouldn't be waiting on his test results to work out whether or not they should be self-isolating and getting tested?
But, Parliament exists in a separate universe where the rules that the rest of us live with don't apply. Presumably there's an expectation that the virus also behaves differently there.
What @LeorningCniht said, and because at the moment so few people are using public transport that adequate distancing is possible, but from 15 June shops will be open and more people will be on trains and buses.
But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
How trustworthy is the reporting of deaths? I doubt very much that Russia is accurately reporting deaths. And I'd bet the rent there are jurisdictions in the US that aren't reporting accurately. I imagine some countries just can't report all the deaths. And I'll bet we won't know the true toll for quite some time after it's all over.
Comments
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Oman has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Something about this reminds me of the multiverse, or the dangers of becoming too invested in ones model to reflect clearly on reality. There were frequent times during my Permanent Head Damage where I got lost in this kind of thing.
Anyway, I'm off to drink my phlogiston and take a few deep breaths of luminiferous aether.
That said, at least four members of SAGE have come out against the government direction.
mark in manchester--
Looked up the "phlogiston" you mentioned. Interesting concept. Might want to follow it up with a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (H2G2).
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Nigeria has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Can’t help wondering what’s in it now.
It will highlight the fact that those groups who are affected by poverty, exclusion and other disadvantages have become victims of Covid19 far more than most.
The fact that BAME people are far more likely to have been on the ‘front line’ and unable to work from home.
Yep.
There is an interesting scientific question here. Covid-19 appears to be a more severe disease in non-white people. The question is, to what extent this is genetic and to what extent this reflects socioeconomic factors?
My best guess is that it's both. One of these is a modifiable risk factor.
AFZ
True, but I suspect the VitD pathway is not particularly important. OTOH, as you say, it is treatable for those who do not get enough VitD from sunlight exposure.
I think it's more to do with the innate immune system's propensity to being pro-inflammatory. It is the massive inflammatory response to the virus in some people that seems to be the most important process in the pathology of Covid-19.
This is all provisional and when we have better data in a couple of years, some of my pronouncements might look a bit silly.... but I think the genetic differences will be linked to the innate immune system primarily.
AFZ
I think that's wise. There's no downside to it and it might be useful. Similar to the ibuprofen thing; for most people there's no downside to avoiding it and it might turn out to be important.
I'm sure you appreciate where I was coming from but still you're taking a sensible approach.
AFZ
Any single genetic explanation is going to have quite a small role because of the diversity of the origins of the various BAME communities -- it also appears to reflect the effects seen in other health issues e.g people of north Indian ethnicity being affected less than those of Pakistani origin (something that's easier to explain socioeconomically than genetically).
Possibly. But if you ask the question the other way round, the white, European population is not especially diverse. I.e. I am positing not that the various BAME populations share a genetic factor that makes them more susceptible but rather the white population has a genetic factor that is protective.
I suspect it's more than one thing but in the world of immunology, things like HLA* type conferring risk of specific diseases is well understood. Equally I wouldn't be surprised if there was some variation in the receptor molecule (the cell-surface molecule that the virus binds to in order to infect the cell) that affected susceptibility. Similarly the pathways of the innate immune system are subject to genetic variation.
Conversely, socioeconomic factors also offer a plausible explanation because we know that infective dose is important and in London at least, bus drivers (for example) have been struck down. I don't know, but I reckon that BAME populations are over-represented among bus drivers. Nevermind that socioeconomic status always correlates with general health and the risks of underlying diseases.
So, yeah, I think it's both.
AFZ
*HLA - human leukocyte antigen; this is another really complex area of immunology and I don't want to derail the thread but simply there are multiple types and having some of them has been shown to be associated with specific diseases.
Meanwhile my schedule at work is getting populated with conference calls about venues reopening for our screening clinics. As a result I will have to use a fourth different video-calling platform tomorrow. Tbh most of my calls so far have been connected to my busy virtual social life!
As with all these things, we're all working from preliminary data. The reason I think there will be genetic factors is simply because there always is with viruses. Viruses hijack the host's cell machinery; turning it into a virus factor. At several stages of the life cycle interaction with the hosts biology occurs thus there is always the potential for this interaction to be interrupted. It is generally thought that having Sickle cell trait (rather than the disease itself) is an advantage because it's protective against malaria (not a virus but the principle holds). The other thing is that the pathogenesis of Covid-19 is primarily to do with the immune response. There is a lot of evidence that genetics effect the workings of the immune system.
Whether you can see such genetic variation on a population rather than just an individual level is a different question.
Time will tell, I suspect. However, I would be stunned if socioeconomic factors weren't found to be a major factor. Which is why it's political.
AFZ
Would the white population in the US be more genetically diverse? Enough to matter? I'm wondering because here white people would not only be likely to have forebears who came from all over Europe, many have forebears from other places in the world as well, but are considered white because they look white.
One thing I read said something along these lines: black people with hypertension in the US carry the eight previous generations of hypertensive black bodies.
I have no idea if it would. I'm just wondering. White Americans aren't all as European as they look or think themselves to be. But maybe not enough to make a difference.
This quote is from the executive summary:
(Emphasis mine)
More to know but this does (potentially) support a genetic predisposition in different population groups - especially as different ethnic groups have different outcomes and it's not simply a case of white / non-white. Equally, it might be that there are confounders here that once accounted for, the difference disappears. I don't think so - I think there is a genetic effect but we don't know for sure yet.
I'll try to read the report properly at some point and add anything else that would be helpful to the discussion.
AFZ
Why are men so much more likely to die of Covid19 than women, independent of age? In many places it’s more than twice the rate.
It's a fair point. I don't think there's any doubt that being male is a major risk factor. I haven't seen if this is related to the much higher rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in men or not. The relationship between male gender and CVD is well established and probably has a lot to do with the differences in fat deposition between the genders. There also is a clear link between Covid-19 risk and CVD. That might be the whole explanation. Or there might be other factors as well.
AFZ
Yes, so - there being more elderly women than men to start with, that makes the statistics even more alarming for men.
Should there not be extra protections for men due to this very high difference in death rates?
I know you are adding the caveat above, but British Bangladeshis have also long had a notably higher rate of poverty than other ethnic groups in the UK.
I'm not averse to genetic explanations, but there's also a history of them being used to excuse other failings.
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You're not wrong about genetics being used as an excuse.
I haven't read the report or looked at the data but the part I quoted described correcting for deprivation.
AFZ
But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
I can't find any reported evidence that the virus is evolving into a less lethal form. Is there anything along those lines? It would be good news if true, but assertions that it is happening if it isn't are very dangerous.
Thank you for asking about this, @Barnabas62, I’ve been wondering as well.
Not sure what that would look like. At the moment the only real protections available are masks, hand washing, and social distancing.
This came up at a WHO press conference recently. They said probably not true.
AFZ
They wouldn't be waiting on his test results to work out whether or not they should be self-isolating and getting tested?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52927089
Why wait?
In fairness, it seems necessary to allow people time to obtain or fashion the necessary coverings, before penalizing them for not having them.
What @LeorningCniht said, and because at the moment so few people are using public transport that adequate distancing is possible, but from 15 June shops will be open and more people will be on trains and buses.
How trustworthy is the reporting of deaths? I doubt very much that Russia is accurately reporting deaths. And I'd bet the rent there are jurisdictions in the US that aren't reporting accurately. I imagine some countries just can't report all the deaths. And I'll bet we won't know the true toll for quite some time after it's all over.
What I want to know is whether it has to be purpose made, or whether I could use a Niqab, a veil, a knights helmet, or a bandana ?