Pablo Sigal
08/14/2020 - 14:38
- Clarín.com
- Society
India, Brazil, the United States, Peru and Colombia. Only those five countries today have more cases of coronavirus per day than Argentina in the world. However, if the population of each place is taken into account, Argentina is located in third place on the planet , after Peru and Colombia. In the last 24 hours, India added 64,142 cases; Brazil, 59,147, United States, 55,364; Colombia, 11,286 and Peru, 9,441. Argentina had 7,498 more cases.
The rate of national infections made this week surpass the great cuckoo of the pandemic that months ago was Italy. Today that country adds 252,235 cases, against 276,072 in Argentina . The European country was one of the most affected by the pandemic, since the coronavirus was unleashed before the authorities could take account of the fact, so it quickly spread among the vulnerable population. That made it one of the places with the highest number of deaths: 35,231. Today there are almost no deaths: in the last 24 hours there were 6.
Argentina is today ranked 15th in the world with the most cases of coronavirus. A week ago I was in the 20th. That accounts for the speed with which infections are growing in our country, while in several of the nations that appear above in the ranking the curve falls.
One of the great Argentine strengths continues to be that, despite having all these cases, the number of deaths remains relatively low even though the curve in recent days has shown growth. It has 119 deaths per million inhabitants, while Peru has 777; Colombia, 278; Mexico, 273; Chile, 538; Brazil, 496 and Ecuador, 340. In Europe, Italy has 583; France, 465; United Kingdom, 609; Spain, 612 and Germany, 111.
Definitely, Germany is the one that got the best European grade in handling the pandemic: it had little time to resolve, since in January it was in the eye of the hurricane, and it has fewer deaths per million than Argentina. One of the differences was the number of tests carried out by both countries. While the Germans carried out 102,446 tests per million inhabitants, Argentina did 20,148.
La Esperanza, the mAbxience laboratory in Garín where the vaccine will be produced for all of Spain. Photo: Maxi Failla
The fatality rate in Argentina today is 2.71 , even lower than a few days ago because cases increase in proportion more than deaths. However, the data does not reflect reality. The number of cases represents the present, while the number of deaths represents the past . Only once both curves reach the end will it be possible to calculate the fatality rate in the country.
This is so for two reasons: one, because the provinces take time to load their dead, both for an administrative issue and also because an investigation is often required to determine the cause of death. And that death is charged as a coronavirus death once it is certain. Two, because the curves of the pandemic do not occur in parallel, but in a consecutive way . This requires a separate paragraph.
The logic of the pandemic - of any pandemic - assumes that the death curve comes first, then that "wave" breaks into a second curve, which is that of internees in intensive care , which forms again and grows until it breaks again in a third curve which is that of the dead. As can be seen, some time elapses between the contagion curve and the death curve . How long? An average of 20 days -sometimes more, sometimes less-, which is what it is considered that a person can occupy an intensive therapy bed.
It is typical of the behavior of the pandemic, then, that when the peak of cases is exceeded, the deaths continue to increase, because they will be all those seriously ill who will have to finish their illness without being able to recover. For this reason, the real fatality rate caused by the coronavirus in Argentina can only really be appreciated in that instance , at the end of a path in which the goal is not yet in sight.
That was the case in every country in the world. In those in which the curve has matured more than in others, it is possible to have a more complete approach to this data. In Argentina, it is premature to reach a conclusion , although a fact in favor is that the availability of the health system still resists well : its eventual saturation would be a turning point for the number of deaths to skyrocket above the current average.
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