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COVID-19. Beyond the noise!

One infected person in Yemen, no deaths to lament! Every morning and throughout the day, we are bombarded with astonishing and contradictory data, the meaning of which often eludes us. Worldwide, 2.4 million people infected, more than 160,000 deaths; 760,000 positive cases and 40,000 deaths in the United States, the world's leading power!

Some clarifications are in order:

1) Information related to Covid-19 depends on statistics. In the absence of statistics, there is a good chance nothing will be done. As far as the number of infections is concerned, this obviously depends on the number of tests being done: the greater the testing, the greater the likelihood of getting a picture close to the reality of the epidemic.

2) All figures being announced are provisional. The epidemic is still evolving.

3) The vast majority of infections end in full recovery. A small proportion of infected cases end up in hospital. And an even smaller proportion end up in an intensive care unit (ICU). And this is where it gets serious: indeed, in absolute terms, this proportion ranges from a few individuals to several thousands of patients. Everything therefore depends on the capacity to treat seriously ill patients, and this capacity differs greatly from one country to another.

On this point, I invite you to lower the TV - or better, turn it off - and take a look at the following table:

Number of ICU beds per 100,000 people:

USA: 34.5

Taiwan: 29.8

Germany: 29.2

Italy: 12.5

France: 11.6

South Korea: 10.6

Spain: 9.7

Japan: 7.3

United Kingdom: 6.6

China: 3.6

India: 2.3

Sri Lanka: 1.6

Figures for other countries are not available, unfortunately. In Africa, some estimates indicate just five beds per million people!

These numbers sadly speak for themselves.

When we see the enormous difficulties faced by Italy, France or Spain in coping with the infection, we can only imagine the challenges for other countries, such as those of Africa.

That said, apocalyptic outcomes are not an inevitability and all countries are doing their best to meet the challenge with the means at their disposal.

And this is where the human factor - which translates specifically into strategies - takes on all its importance.

China, with just 3.6 ICU beds per hundred thousand population, was able to control the epidemic in three months. In the United States, with a ratio of 34.5 beds, the death count continues to climb by the day. Germany, with 29.2 ICU beds, reports 145,000 infections and 4,500 deaths compared to almost 20,000 deaths in France, which has 11.6 ICU beds.

Different countries have employed different strategies, but where those strategies have been best tailored to available resources, the results have closely matched expectations.

Benyounès

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