Pablo Sigal
06/17/2021 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 06/17/2021 6:00 AM
Covid in the world has already left more than
3.8 million deaths
. Each country, depending on its population size and how it has handled the pandemic, has "contributed" its share of deaths to that fatal number. In some countries the articulation between both factors was
more virtuous than in others
. For this reason, today the planet is divided between those who have fewer deaths than they could have had, and
those who have more
.
Argentina is located in the second group: its number of inhabitants represents
0.57 percent
of the world population. That is, 45 million inhabitants out of a total 7,800 million people. However, accumulated deaths represent
2.25 percent of those that occurred globally
(more than 87 thousand out of 3.8 million globally). It means
3.95 times more
than it "should" have had.
If this indicator is compared with that of other countries, the United States accumulates
16 percent
of total deaths.
This is
3.36 times
more than what, a priori, it would have been logical to add to the total account.
Brazil has contributed
12.8 percent
of deaths, which places it in excess of
4.20 times
(its population is 3 percent of the total).
In South America, apart from Brazil,
only Peru
surpasses Argentina in this
deficit of
lives saved
.
In fact, it is the worst performing country in the world: it has
11.85 times
more deaths than it should have according to its population (0.42 percent of the world's inhabitants and 4.98 percent of deaths).
Argentina is currently ranked
17th in the world
in deaths per million inhabitants.
However, if only countries with more than
10 million inhabitants
are taken into account
, it ranks
seventh
, behind Peru, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Belgium, Italy and Poland.
Among countries with
more than 20 million
inhabitants, it ranks
fifth
.
v1.7 0421
Evolution of deaths in the world
»Deaths per million inhabitants.
Source:
OWID- JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV.
Infographic:
Clarín
This reality occurs despite the fact that fatality has fallen in Argentina, according to official data, from
2.8 percent in the first wave of Covid to 1.4 in the second
. Lethality is the number of deaths over the number of infections. That decline had not so much to do with fewer deaths, but rather the opposite: there were many more infections.
The decrease in lethality is also linked to the fact that within that
huge universe of
Covid
cases
that was the second (or third) wave in our country, vaccination (even with a preponderance of first doses)
cushioned
the severity of the tables, while the average age of people susceptible to the virus fell, which in itself makes
resistance to infection
greater.
On the other side of this platoon of countries with the worst death figures per million inhabitants, there are those that have achieved the
best results
, taking into account the size of their populations.
That is, those that could have had as many or more deaths than Argentina, but
had fewer.
The advance of vaccination, key to curbing deaths.
Photo: Ministry of Health.
In Europe, the United Kingdom and Spain are two examples of countries that in the first wave came in a very complicated situation and have managed to
improve
, with restrictions and timely vaccination.
Sweden has 1,431 deaths per million inhabitants:
34 percent less
than Argentina.
In America, Canada is another case of overcoming: with 38 million inhabitants, it has 25,972 deaths.
In Africa, South Africa and Saudi Arabia they have also become examples of a good balance between deaths and number of inhabitants.
And in Oceania, Australia has so far managed to have just a total of 910 deaths from Covid with 25 million inhabitants, which gives it an astonishing rate of
35 deaths per million
inhabitants.
The
world average
of deaths per million inhabitants is 492. Argentina has 1,900 deaths per million.
It is another way of calculating the same
"excess of deaths"
: the account shows that our country has 3.86 times more deaths than the planet has, which is the same as saying
286 percent more
.
How the pandemic was managed
in each country is the key to explaining why some countries show this “excess” of deaths compared to the global average and its number of inhabitants, while others have managed to place themselves below that same average.
In this sense, quarantines have been an inescapable constant in successful efforts in the face of the unprecedented health crisis, but
always
accompanied by tests, isolations and a stricter control of protocols.
In Argentina, the
lack of balance
in the measures chosen to curb the Covid has placed the country in a territory of great uncertainty, naturally translated into its statistics.
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