COVID-19 Regional Comparison

I live in Hong Kong. We’ve been dealing with the Coronavirus outbreak since January. By that I mean working from home, wearing masks, keeping social distancing, etc.

I’ve been watching with horror as the number of cases and deaths climb daily in the US. While we can’t really compare Hong Kong to the US, if you compare Hong Kong to New York City it looks like this:

I decided to take a look at numbers by region. I compared 10 countries in Europe to 10 countries in Asia. The comparison has to raise some serious questions about why things are so much worse in Europe and the US when compared to Asia.

The 10 countries in Asia I looked at are:

1. China
2. Hong Kong
3. Indonesia
4. Japan
5. Malaysia
6. Philippines
7. Singapore
8. South Korea
9. Taiwan
10. Thailand

The countries in Europe on my list are:

1. Belgium
2. France
3. Germany
4. Italy
5. Netherlands
6. Portugal
7. Spain
8. Sweden
9. Switzerland
10. UK

I know some, who just can’t accept that the US isn’t doing a better job than every other country in managing the outbreak, will immediately claim that my numbers are fatally flawed because China has almost 1.5b people and may be grossly understating the number of cases and deaths. Even if their numbers are off by 10x, or I excluded them from the list, the numbers for Asia still would be way better than Europe or the US. I’m convinced that every country is, to some degree, understating their cases and deaths because all world leaders want to compare their stats to other countries and praise themselves for doing a good job in face of this global crisis.

If you just compare the US to Europe, the numbers don’t look too bad. The US has less deaths per million than the average of those 10 countries in Europe. But, how is it that 10 countries in Asia, with a total population of over 2 billion, have reported only 3.5 deaths per million?

I think there are multiple factors, and I’m not a doctor or a scientist, so my analysis is anecdotal at best. I think the biggest factors are a combination of societal attitude and underlying health condition. First point: In December, as soon as word got out that some kind of new virus was active in China people in Hong Kong and other Asian cities started wearing masks and being extra vigilant about washing hands and staying away from anyone who looked sick. In general, people who were sick, took great care to not get anyone else sick. People here understand that they wear a mask, not to protect themselves but to protect other people. If everyone wears a mask, we are all safer. In the US, many people refused to wear masks and complain that they shouldn’t be asked to wear a mask if it doesn’t protect them from other people who are sick.

Second point: I’ve lived in Asia long enough to be shocked every time I travel back to the US when I realize again how fat and unhealthy Americans are compared to Asians. Yes, we have obese people in Asia, and we have skinny, healthy people in the US, but by comparison, it doesn’t take an expensive survey or research project to conclude that a much larger portion of the population in both the US and Europe are overweight, drink alcohol regularly, and eat more processed foods.

What conclusions do I draw from my comparison of COVID-19 stats between Europe, Asia and the US? Folks should be looking at Asia to understand how to keep the population strong and healthy. The world will get through this pandemic and economies will slowly recover. But when will the next one hit? If we’ve learned nothing else, it should be abundantly clear that you can’t stop the spread of a disease like this. The next one will spread and will be a problem for everyone on the planet no matter where it originates. The best protection is education. If people understand how to protect themselves and others from such communicable diseases and they understand the importance of their own basic health and nutrition, we will all be less vulnerable to the next nasty virus that spreads across the globe.

Conspiracy theories and blaming everyone else for why so many people are getting infected and dying will not solve anything. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and avoid public settings where you may be exposed to the virus. Do it not just to protect yourself. Do it to protect your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your community. That is the attitude that distinguishes Asia from the rest of world in this current pandemic.

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries