Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update October 17: The Coronavirus is an equal opportunity killer, right? Wrong. Many countries have done better than others.

It is an amazing story. 1/

One might think it has something to do with wealth.

The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world. 60 per 100,000 have died here.

This compares to 2 in Haiti and 1 in Botsowana (its close to 0 for the continent of Africa) 2/

Other wealthy countries have also had very high mortality rates.

The U.K. (62), Sweden (57), Italy (59) & Belgium (86) have fared as bad or worse than the U.S. overall-- although they all improved dramatically compared to the U.S. starting in May (more on that in a sec) 3/

Look by continents & you see differences. In addition to Africa, Oceana and Asia fared better on deaths/100,000 than European countries or the Americas despite proximity to Wuhan.

Japan (1.2), Australia (3.3), S Korea (0.7), Hon Kong, China, and Singapore (all around 1). 4/

One interesting look is some of the countries with extreme wealth & poverty have high deaths/100,000.

Brazil (73), Russia (15), the UK (66), Peru (104), Mexico (67), South Africa (32), Saudi Arabia (15) rate high on measures of income inequality. The US sits squarely in there.5/

Countries with high levels of equalityA (Australia, Norway, Finland, Denmark) have extremely low levels of death/100,000 (<10). There are exceptions-- Sweden, who decided to not mask up or fight the virus & Belgium stick out (on to Belgium in a sec). 6/

Sorry for all these numbers. I will get to what I think the point is. 7/

What do all these numbers tell me? 4 Things:
1- Nicer people, more communal countries generally do better. Income equality looks to be more important than total wealth.

People smile through masks & glare without them 8/

(By the way, low hanging fruit to @ me about these generalizations, finding exceptions, and my statements about countries being nice. So, yes, there are nice people everywhere, many possible explanations & always exceptions as I will describe.) 9/

2- The second thing this suggests is experience with infectious diseases is important. It far outweighs travel or proximity to infected people.

Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, DRC had an experienced populous. They knew to put on masks, they knew what to open & what to close. 10/

They also didn't need to be convinced this is serious. They didn't argue over it. They have seen the death.

Hong Kong has the most cross border travel with Wuhan. Only 105 people have died. Trump's fake border closing didn't matter one bit. 11/

3- My 3rd conclusion is that there is likely an element of randomness, timing, travel & a set of surprises here.

Italy may be the best example. They clearly got an early traveler before the world knew what was going on. Hence the 59/100,000 deaths. But there's something else.12/

If you start everyone's clock, May 10 when most countries had their first go of this and that gives everyone the benefit of the doubt for being unaware, the numbers tell a very different story. Italy is 9/100.000, the US is 36. 13/

In fact, measuring the wealthiest 18 country starting May 10, the US is by a large margin, the worst in the world. More than 2x the UK, 5x France, 3x Belgium.

Something happened in Belgium, but like Italy, they recovered. 14/

The only other wealthy country in the world close to the US since May 10? Sweden-- the only other country not actively trying to stop the virus. Sweden is at 23/100,000, 1/3 less than the U.S. 15/

4. My 4th conclusion is that the U.S. is 1 of the only countries that really hasn't shown the ability to adapt. Yes our death rate is decline, but that's largely due to Dexy & other treatment advances.

We as a people don't get the credit. Doctors & scientists do.16/

So, yes, there is randomness-- when you account for it-- and give us time to adjust, look past all the sins of calling it fake, the U.S. stands alone. And we stand alone in a few ways...17/

Trump refused to take it seriously
Trump refused to ask a thing of people to prevent this
Trump gave responsibility to the states
Trump promised miracle cures
Trump replaced serious scientists

In a word, you start with Trump. But it doesn't end there.18/

We elected the man. Or some people did. We have other problematic features we should own up to: inequality, inexperience, arrogance, unwillingness to sacrifice for each other and put the collective good higher than individual needs. 19/

Trump may be too lazy and too scared and too weak to sacrifice, but remember, he's a populist. He's a reflection of what he thinks his followers want to see. 20/

We have some hard questions to face to live in a world with pandemics and not be the fools of the world. I have a book coming out about this you can buy. Great read I think.21/

us.macmillan.com/books/97812507…

But in the meantime. we have something to do to clear our path.

Its called an accountability election.
Its called finding someone with the critical ingredients of competency & compassion.
There is no path that doesn't take this step. /end