Why are the death rates different between countries?
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Many are tracking the daily coronavirus infection and death rates. One may have noticed that the death rates differ greatly from country to country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says various factors can contribute to such discrepancies.
First, there’s the “population pyramid” or distribution of age and gender in a given country. Then there’s the medical or healthcare capacities of each country. And last but not least, the number of people who are tested for coronavirus, because knowing and recording exactly who has been infected will directly influence the validity of any published figures.
In some countries, supplementary tests are carried out on the dead. And that would influence the statistics as well.
If in Italy, fewer younger people, who presented with mild symptoms, were tested for coronavirus than in Germany. Those cases would not appear in the number of overall infections. And that would influence the death rate, because only the severely ill would be visible.
In Italy, a report in the national newspaper, Corriere della Sera, suggests there may be a high number of unreported cases in the country, both among infections and those people who are dying following an infection.
In South Korea, it’s the exact opposite. Authorities there have tested significantly more people for Covid-19 than other countries. And the estimated death rate in South Korea is extremely low.
The average age of a population can also play a role here. Older people are at high risk of contracting the coronavirus as they often have pre-existing health conditions.
That can make it easier for a virus to overcome a person’s immune system — certainly easier than is with otherwise healthy people, who are often also young. Our immune defences weaken as we get older, our immune systems become less effective, and that puts us at greater risk of infectious diseases.
The most important question, however, is how well a country’s healthcare system is prepared for an outbreak, such as the coronavirus, and whether it can succeed in “flattening the curve.” The idea here is to reduce the likelihood of any sudden spikes in the infection and death rates by keeping numbers stable as a virus spreads through a population.
It’s possible, for instance, to reduce the number of deaths of severely ill coronavirus patients with the help of respirators, or ventilator machines. So, it’s important that there are enough hospital beds in intensive care and access to such machines.
If there are too few intensive care beds and ventilators for artificial respiration, it’s likely that those patients who don’t get that care will be at higher risk of dying.
