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Glenn-uk
I often wonder about the robustness of statistics coming out of African countries which do not have the same facilities and resources. In this case two mitigating factors. In Lagos Currently, the temperature is 27 degrees at 7 am, and I believe it is supposed to be winter. Secondly the average age in many developing countries is much lower than in Europe and America. But on the other hand Latin America is badly hit with high death figure s in Brazil, Mexico and others although some of these countries are more developed than African countries.Another consideration regarding Africa is the generally low number of tests per million of the population, if you don’t test enough people, you don’t know who has died of Covid-19 and the excess mortality figures in these countries is not easily available. Take for example the three most populous countries in Africa Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt, the ratio of tests per million of population is between 6-17 thousand per million, whereas in countries with the highest mortality rates, the ratio is often above 1 million. So it really is not surprising that the deaths per million of the population in Nigeria is 8, Ethiopia 18 and Egypt 90, compared to figures of over 1000 in UK US and so on. So there is gross underreporting from Africa and the true situation is totally unknown.
I seem to be arguing and counterarguing with myself!
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[ Mod: No problem, SA; you’re just thinking in public – and it’s very useful to see it happening! You’re welcome to carry on in the same vein … ]SA, the “tests per million population” might be misleading. Back in last spring I read of “pool testing” in an African country – this was a blood test, I think. Everyone in a community group gives a blood sample. A portion of each sample is taken, and the portions are then combined to form the “pool”. This pool is then tested. If it’s negative, no one in the community group is infected. If it’s positive, there are still the remainders of each sample that were not combined, for narrowing down who’s infected and who isn’t.
If the WHO have been coordinating, this technique might be widespread by now. It is particularly well suited to nucleated communities.
Does the WHO publish assessments of testing coverage?
Clark
Testing in Africa is sort of hit and miss. We are all looking at these figures generated and think that they reflect something. The CDC Africa site has some information about this. Testing is difficult for many reasons but at least initially because there were only 10 laboratories in Africa that could do PCR tests. The WHO and CDC are now pushing the rapid antigen test, which of course can miss many cases, but is better than nothing. However despite the lack of testing I also read somewhere that there are not many reports from African countries of hospitals being overwhelmed. But also interestingly I read somewhere else that from the outset many countries in Africa were very quick and successful in contact tracing because it is still very much alive in African countries and well organised because of the ubiquitousness of infectious diseases.Why some countries have been so badly hit with high numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and others with either much lower death rates or infection rates is largely unknown but can be the subject of speculation. It easy for example to explain the success of New Zealand in preventing the virus to take hold with a total of 2308 cases and 25 deaths because of the relative isolation due to being a Pacific Island and because borders were shut early and a sensible government got the trust of its people. Some factors that play a part are obviously population density, the number of travelers into the country, the preparedness of government for dealing with a pandemic, population compliance with lockdown, government implementation, facilitation and support of isolation and quarantine of all infected cases and other unknown factors such as possible genetic ethnic factors, poverty and so on. Also accurate recording of data, numbers tested and numbers dying, diagnostic and hospital facilities all play a part. In an article published in Counterpunch. John Feffer attempts to address this question in “What explains COVID’s East-West Divide” he discusses the possible contributing reasons to this discrepancy.
“The obvious “losers” have been those countries led by right-wing nationalists: Brazil, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and (until recently) the United States. These five countries are responsible for more than half of the world’s coronavirus infections and nearly half the deaths. “
Interestingly he assumes that US is no longer led by ‘Right Wing Nationalist Leaders’ as if there has been a radical ‘regime change’ with the departure of Trump.
However the analysis is interesting and contains some good insights. He states that the discrepancies are not necessarily due to whether the countries are ruled democratically, by a military Junta or by autocrats or communist regimes. He ascribes the difference to three reasons: The first is“In 2003, the region was blindsided by the SARS epidemic. The first cases emerged in southern China in late 2002. By March, the new coronavirus was showing up in Hong Kong and Vietnam as well. Eventually it would appear in 29 countries and result in over 700 deaths. By July, after unprecedented international cooperation, the World Health Organization declared the epidemic contained.”
This has resulted in high awareness of the possibility of pandemics in Asia and preparedness for future pandemics.
“A second advantage that Asian countries have enjoyed is a coordinated central government response.”
It was not just coordinated it was detailed and worked out with the infrastructure to support proper lockdown and assist all those affected. Affected areas were isolated from travel early whilst South Korea instituted an excellent track and trace system unlike the Did-track dead in its track system we have here.
“The third advantage, and this comes the closest to a revival of the “Eastern values” argument, is the issue of compliance. “
Whereas in Asian countries the use of masks in public has been accepted and used even in the absence of an epidemic, the anti-mask movement here grew as a pretense for fighting for personal liberty. IN fact this attitude smacks more of selfishness than personal liberty. Also whereas there is a high acceptance of vaccines in Asian countries, the antivaccination movement appears to have got a shot in the arm with this pandemic with a large number of the population being vaccine hesitant.
WE have off course experiences those ‘fighters for personal selfishness’ in these forums. But at present we seem to have a lull.I am very disappointed putting Russia with 515 per million death and India with 112 in the same basket with countries recording between 1200 and 1600(UK).
Communist are doing best ?.
BTW do Orientals/Asians shake hands, kiss each other on a cheek and give hug to each other? I am guessing not.
Sometimes I am scared Religious bigots (connecting vaccines to fetus) and Libertarians will be downfall of our civilisation.
Hopefully they are under 30% of population.Pigeon English
I have always maintained that there is no capitalist solution to this pandemic, only a socialist one. It has to be a communal effort with everyone participating under the leadership of a government for the people.
A propos Russia and India, the writer of the above article obviously thinks that things will suddenly get better in the US because of Biden being president but I am not sure this will happen overnight.Sorry I forgot you were quoting the author.
SA, interesting article. I think it leaps to its unduly clear-cut conclusions, but it’s more right than wrong; very good broad-brushwork, and concise.
Our US-European society is fractured and corroding, which is unsurprising after decades of this cult of consumerism, and individualism to the point that all personal opinion should supposedly be respected, even when it contradicts facts. The rationalists on these recent threads have been repeatedly accused of bigotry for insisting upon facts. There’s something very wrong there; no one should be insulted for that.
The article makes the important point that people’s attitude to each other is crucial; even though distrust of government may be high, people don’t conflate scientific and medical expertise with government in the way the contrarians on these threads have done. Maybe these societies are more integrated and less stratified. Maybe a higher proportion of employment is practical, connected with design and manufacture, and less with retail, promotion, advertising, “customer services” and public relations, all of which involve degrees of deception.
Pigeon English, I think the country you need to examine is Cuba; neither Russia nor India have much communist about them these days.
Clark I was referring to China.
Two other things to add to the above analysis. In fact CounterPunch is a good source of articles about Covid-19 and this one
“The So-Called Moderna Vaccine Is a Publicly Funded Miracle”
by Alex Lawson is also interesting and the title is self explanatory. In it he shows how the opportunities and potential for scientific cooperation which the pandemic presented, have instead been used for capitalist corporative gain. This publicly funded vaccine should have relinquished patent rights and allowed cross national vaccine development with ramping up of supplies worldwide. The same should have applied to all research concerning Covid-19 and treatments, diagnostic tests and supplies and so on. Instead politicians still continue to operate with the old profit led capitaliust worldview. It is a crime against humanity that seems to be unnoticed that during this horrendous pandemic, the main concern of the USG was to ramp up aggressive and punitive sanctions against Iran, Venezuela and Russia, some of these sanctions., limiting the ability of some of these countries to respond to the pandemic. Israel also took this opportunity to carry out many bombing raids within Syria, and of course the war in Yemen is still ongoing with help from USG and UKG.
The second point worth reflecting on is that of the initial response to the pandemic in UK. Instead of reflexive long tried and tested Public Health measures being quickly implemented, the government formed a committee SAGE which ignored those at the heart of dealing with the epidemic, instead discussing highly theoretical modelling with high dependency on RIRA principle. In fact Public Health England with its network of expertise and local connections, also involving the councils was marginalized from the outset, and the contempt shown to this essential organization reached its apex when the government announced dissolution of PHE and its incorporation into a newly formed biosecurity centre presumably under the auspices of the MOD. This re-organization passed with minimal comment from the ‘corporate media’ or the opposition or scientists. In fact throughout this essentially public health crisis, there was an inordinate interference by politicians. This is another very glaring difference between the West and the rest of the world.Pigeon English, I don’t really know much about what it’s like to live in China; doesn’t look much like the Soviet Union from the little I’ve seen. Towards the rest of the world, the state called China clearly behaves as a capitalist participant in the international markets.
SA, I agree, but I will have to read the article later!
Clark
China is not a proper capitalist state. There is still a command centralised economy but with elements of capitalist enterprise for some. Similar to what Lenin tried with the NEP in the early days of the Russian revolution to a much more limited extent.Vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy. Or should it be vaccine capitalism profit seeking corporations vs vaccine cooperation to fight a world pandemic?
In an article in the Guardian “Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence”, the authors, Michael Safi and Milivoe Pantovic analyse the way that vaccine supplies have been used in different ways in the West where production is by profit seeking big Pharma (with the exception of the Astra Zeneca Vaccine, and by State controlled Pharma in Russia and China.
“Conspicuously missing so far from the fray of overseas deals and donations have been western governments, which are consumed with vaccinating their own populations first and have preferred to channel vaccine aid into multilateral schemes such as Covax, the sharing mechanism that will start by supplying about 3% of the most vulnerable people in middle- and lower-income countries over the next six months.”
The article then discusses how China and Russia have managed to pledge 800,000 million doses of vaccines as a gift to many developing countries and in some cases to get the vaccine manufactured under license in other countries, thus increasing manufacturing capacity and speed of vaccination. It has to be said that this is also the basis by which India is manufacturing the Astra Zeneca Vaccine and sharing it with South Asian countries.
But the article is rather grudging about Russia and China but instead blames them for exploiting this:
“By then, countries such as the UK, US and Canada expect to be on their way to herd immunity, along with a clutch of other wealthy countries that have bought up most of the supply of western vaccines that will be produced in 2021. The divide is a diplomatic opportunity, and some foreign capitals are taking it.”
But the punchline here is, even in the face of a global pandemic, the most important motivation is profit as indicated here:
“Pfizer, Moderna too, they’re here to make a profit,” said Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “Companies do not do diplomacy, in theory. They have short-term goals. So it’s very different when a vaccine is marketed by a government over a company.”
Even though the Moderna Vaccine was heavily subsidised by the US taxpayer.
Meanwhile, in another article South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines Kaamil Ahmed writes:
“The domination of global medicine by major pharmaceutical companies needs to be confronted to provide fairer access to vaccines, a leading South African official has said.
The scramble over Covid vaccines should alert rich countries to the power of profit-driven companies that control production of crucial medicines, said Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights.
“While Rome is burning, we are fiddling around [waiting],” said De Gama, who called on nations where many of these pharmaceutical firms are based to stop blocking a patent waiver proposed at the WTO.
Backed by dozens of developing countries, the proposal, introduced by South Africa and India, argued that bypassing intellectual property rights would allow more of the world’s population to be quickly vaccinated by boosting production.”
Meanwhile the other ugly side of the behavior of the US in the fight against Covid 19 is seen in the unilateral sanctions that will hamper the efforts by certain nations , labelled as the enemy. These Include Venezuela, Syria and Iran.
The sanctions by the US have been increasingly tightened to strangulate Venezuela and has a massive negative effect on ordinary life including electricity supply, water treatment and other essentials. Venezuelan state assets overseas have been frozen by UKG, USG and Portuguese G. This also has a major effect on drug and other essential medical and diagnostic supplies.
Unilateral sanctions hamper Syria’s fight against coronavirus pandemic: UN envoy
“Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari says unilateral sanctions imposed by the Western countries are hampering the Damascus government’s efforts to import medicine and other medical supplies to fight the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak in the country.
“Unilateral coercive economic measures hinder Syria’s ability to meet the basic needs of its people and confront the epidemic of the novel coronavirus,” Jaafari said on Sunday through the video link at a symposium organized by the Sanctions Kill coalition, which comprises a group of activists working to promote anti-sanctions campaigns.”
U.S. sanctions ‘severely hamper’ Iran coronavirus fight – Rouhani
Cummings is singing like the proverbial Canary. Many revelations about the incompetence of government. This is interesting:
” We are sitting in the prime minister’s office, the Cabinet were talking about the herd immunity plan. The cabinet secretary said ‘Prime Minister you should go on TV tomorrow and explain to people the herd immunity plan and that it’s like the old chicken pox parties, we need people to get this disease because that’s how we get herd immunity by September’.
I said ‘Mark [Sedwill], you have got to stop using this chicken pox analogy, it’s not right’ and he said ‘why’ and Ben Warner said ‘because chicken pox is not spreading exponentially and killing hundreds of thousands of people’.
To stress, this wasn’t some thing that cabinet secretary had come up with, he was saying what the official advice to him from the Department of Health was.”
Elsewhere:
“Like in much of the government system, there were many brilliant people at relatively junior and middle levels who were terribly let down by senior leadership.
I think the secretary of state for health should’ve been fired for at least 15, 20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the cabinet room and publicly.
There’s no doubt at all that many senior people performed far, far disastrously below the standards which the country has a right to expect. I think the secretary of state for health is certainly one of those people.
I said repeatedly to the prime minister that he should be fired, so did the cabinet secretary, so did many other senior people.”
– “…that’s how we get herd immunity by September”
This was said in March 2020, when there was only four months experience with SARS-CoV-2, making it absolutely impossible to know what degree of immunity would be imparted, if any. Playing God with people’s lives.
Professor Christina Pagel member of the alternative SAGE says it is strange to hear Cummings advocating the same policies that I-SAGE promotes. Many of those you can also find in the early part of this thread.
Dominic Cummings is no angel and no hero whistleblower. But a lot of what he says is true and if you go back on this forum and other discussion forums in this website you will find that the accusations he made ring true:
- There were very clear indications in January that this pandemic is coming our way and that when it came it would be relentless with exponential growth in numbers. the 6 weeks of grace we had were completely squandered. Despite reassurances that we were prepared, we were not. There were no plans, no supplies of PPE and no contingencies to ensure supplies of vital material.
- Dominic Cummings stated that there were no plans to deal with pandemics and states that even now there are no plans to deal with major catastrophes. These are events that have to be planned for in detail and in advance and frequently rehearsed and updated. There were none.
- It was very surprising that many weeks were lost in careful instructions about washing hands and a protracted debate about whether face masks will help was then used as a coverup for the lack of PPE. It is a no brainer that the best way of reducing spread of a respiratory virus is to wear masks. Even if this is not scientifically proven for this virus, it really does no harm to wear them, but of course the controversy was created because the government couldn’t even supply these.
- The chaos he describes was vey real especially between mid march and onwards. Pronouncements were being made without any basis. Even co-ordination with supermarkets to ensure supplies of common goods and of hand wash and sanitizers were not made. No mechanisms to prevent hoarding or other antisocial or panic driven actions was made.
- The government has no civic defense plan. If this was a war, the enemy would have taken Whitehall with not a single shot fired. In a major health emergency a civic defense plan which should include commandeering of resources and work force for the common good should have been made. Instead of furlough, many could have been salaried in the common cause to deliver whatever is needed. This would also have included supervision of isolation, provision of care for those who are in need of self isolation and possibly also proper quarantine rather than self-isolation.
- Herd immunity is what the government thought of, and when there was an outcry they renamed it but continued with the policy stealthily.
- Many lies were made and it was clear that they were lies at the time. The care homes slaughter rests squarely on the heads of those who did not provide testing of those discharged from patients and those who took the decisions not to do.
- The disorganized test and trace, not properly functional to this day, was late in introduction.
And so on. But you know what. The Tories will rally around the leader described by his ex chief advisor as not fit for the job, and with their majority and the total ineffectiveness of the opposition, nothing will happen. The enquiry when it eventually happens after a kick in the long grass, will be a whitewash and the government will be exonerated on the basis that these were ‘unprecedented’ events which no one could have forecast.
One of the most glaring omissions regarding data relating to COVID-19 is the impact on health. Too much focus by many on mortality figures means underestimating the real problem. The crude mortality rates are estimates and for example a figure of 2% can be derived from the worldometers data.
But there are no easily available extra table figures relating to hospital admissions, morbidity due to the illness or long term sequelae (long covid). This together with manpower shortages due to even mild illness is the other and much bigger burden of the disease.There are ongoing assessments of overall morbidity and mortality from government sources such as here and here.. They are long reads. Whilst media and government may not be highlighting this there are folk behind the scenes looking at it.
In the above there are efforts to numerate the morbidity etc. Long covid is a different issue, like other post viral syndromes such as Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) or indeed many chronic conditions like pelvic pain. If diagnostics can’t pinpoint something “wrong” they are difficult to deal with. Diagnosis of such conditions then relies on clusters of symptoms and other assessments such as trial treatments to see effects (if it helps). This often leads to such conditions being assigned to psychosomatic causes, “it’s all in your head.” Undoubtedly some are but equally undoubtedly many are not and this can lead to people getting (pissed) fobbed off further complicating the issue. I’m not sure long covid will fit this pattern as there some promising investigations.
ET
Thank you for the references. I was referring to acute morbidity, i.e. proportion of people who test positive who have illnesses including hospitalization and ventilation. The figures for hospital admissions are published daily by the Guardian but not many people focus on them. There is also acute morbidity that does not necessarily requiring hospital admissions but some nevertheless debilitating. Incidentally the later category as far as I know have been rather neglected in the drama, but their study would have been very important in determining factors related to disease progression and identifying possible strategies for introducing interventions that may prevent or ameliorate progression.The subject of ‘long covid’ is a separate one which I need to look at more publications to understand more. From first principles of pathology we have an acute illness caused by say a virus and some viruses persist and continue to cause damage in a chronic infection. Examples are Hepatitis B and C which in some people will cause cirrhosis of the liver or even hepatocellular carcinoma. But SARS cov2 as far as I know does not persist beyond the acute phase and is cleared from the system. So what is called long covid is really the result of the sequelae of the acute infection plus interventions that may have been used to treat patients in the ITU setting. In a way the name, a popular one, is a misnomer and I hope this name is not eventually adopted by the ICD organization.
Some of these sequelae such as lung fibrosis and other chronic lung changes are results of the intense inflammatory response to the virus associated with ARDS. Others may be secondary to the hypercoagulability state that results in various organ damage, the heart and brain. Yet others may result in multiorgan damage due to the cytokine activation syndrome, such as renal failure, myocarditis and other conditions.Unlike chronic fatigue syndrome, where not much pathology has been demonstrated and where there may or may not be a direct association with an infectious agent, this condition is directly related to the aftermath of the acute infection with SARS-cov2 and it is ‘not in the mind’.
