The Third World and COVID-19 - from the BBC Website:
"Singapore is seeing a massive spike in coronavirus infections, mainly among migrant workers from Bangladesh and India.
With thousands of them testing positive, mostly with mild or no symptoms, authorities are scrambling to build quarantine facilities to house them."
- there are two factors of note in this report:
- Thousands of migrant workers from Bangladesh and India testing positive confirms the impression of massive under-reporting and under-testing in those countries.
- That deaths and hospitalisation rates across the Third World are comparatively low is noteworthy. It is apparent that under-reporting is as endemic as the virus across many regions, including the Indian Sub-Continent and Africa, so why are death rates low? All we can do is speculate as follows: birth rates are very high so the demographics are markedly different from European populations - we know young people are less affected by COVID-19 than old people. Obesity is a factor and obesity is a rich country problem on the whole. General exposure to pathogens - from birth, people in poor countries are exposed to far more pathogens than people in pampered rich countries - it is likely that leads to a more robust immune system more capable of dealing even with novel pathogens like COVID-19. Finally, lack of reporting will extend to death certificates too, so it is very likely that many COVID-19 deaths are not being reported as such.
Anybody care to add to the above?
Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum