
Twelve Countries Cumulate 80% of the Pandemic Deaths
The “parallel world” of the pandemic has two main coordinates: contagion cases and deaths, accompanied by the very important indicator of fatality rate relative to contagion cases (Rc/d).
In our previous interventions – see here and here –, we demonstrated that the distribution of contagion cases has fully met the standards of nodal analysis. The comparative analysis by continents has identified three very important paradoxes: the United States, Asia and Africa.
Today we deal with the deaths.
As expected, the distribution of deaths also meets the standards of nodal analysis. The synthesis of the pandemic from June 22nd 2020, practically 6 months after the crisis inception, reveals the following values:
- Contagion cases – 9,180,875;
- Deaths – 473,484;
- Rd/c – 5.16%.
Table 1 shows the 12 node countries that account for 80% of the world’s deaths.
The analysis of Table 1 leads to conclusions of overwhelming importance:
- The share of node countries in total is 5.66%. I emphasize that this value has never been found in the nodal analyses of the last 48 years, which were presented in the most recent volume, The Nodal Analysis. Micro and Macroeconomic Approach. Compendium. The closest value to the share of node countries in the global nominal GDP hierarchies was 8%.
- 10 out of the 12 countries are found among the nodes of the world GDP hierarchy in 2018. I appreciate that we are facing a structure of deaths very close to the power structure of the world, obviously with opposite results. This is all the more intriguing because, among the 12 countries, we may find 6 countries from the well-known G7 group (excluding Japan).
- 10 out of the 12 countries are found among the first 21 ranks of the node countries in terms of contagion cases, as for June 22nd.
- The picture revealed by the data in the table is disturbing: 12 countries (5.66%) account for 80.69% and 170 countries (80.19%) account for 2.75% of all deaths.
- Regarding the values of the Rd/c rates, we find a significant difference among the countries with values lower than average (India, Brazil, Germany, Iran, USA) and those with values much higher than average, such as France, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Canada. The 6.72% average Rd/c rate of the 12 countries is significantly higher than the value of the world average rate, of 5.16%.
Our conclusion is that the 12 countries are representative for the description of the pandemic. One should notice the difference between the values of the Rd/c rates of France, of 18.45%, and of India, of 3.18%.
Similar to the previous intervention, Table 3 shows the continental shares of deaths in total.
The data in Table 3 is similar to that presented in our previous intervention. The only change is between the ranks of Asia and South America. Thus, 3 groups with large differences among them regarding the share of deaths in total are identified: Europe and North America – 72.51%; South America and Asia – 25.69% and Africa and Oceania – with negligible values, of 1.8%.
Table 3 shows the validity of the 3 paradoxes from the previous intervention:
- The 25.90% share of the USA;
- Asia’s low share, of 10.36 %;
- Africa’s negligible share, of 1.77 %.
Given the available data and the conclusions of their analysis, our strong proposal is that the United Nations competent agency, which is the WHO, should select a team of the best 6 international experts (from outside the 12 states) to urgently develop a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of the 12 countries, which, in our opinion, describe the pandemic.
The proposed analysis must include: the medical infrastructure, including the capacities of the emergency care departments, the protective equipment provided for medical care, the quality of medical care (skills and number of staff), the state reserve for equipment and protection. The same document must include the speed with which governments reacted relatively to the date of the official announcement of the pandemic, the type of enforced measures and, finally, the legislation pertaining to the health system and its place among the priorities of government policies.
The SWOT analysis should be turned into a set of recommendations for the governments of all countries of the world in the case of a second wave of pandemic, and for other possible pandemics in the future.
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