Covid Mystery – The New York Times

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good morning. Why was the Covid toll surprisingly low in most parts of Africa and Asia?

It’s one of the biggest mysteries about Covid-19: Why has the death toll been relatively low in most parts of Africa and Asia?

The virus has killed a fraction of many people on those continents – despite a relatively lack of resources – as it did in Europe or the United States:

This is not how public health emergencies usually work. They tend to do the worst damage in poor places, which is actually happening within the United States, where the number of casualties is Top In many minority and low-income communities.

Globally, however, Covid was different. In a recent New Yorker article, Pulitzer Prize-winning physician and author Siddhartha Mukherjee described it as “Epidemic crime.”

Contrary to Mukherjee’s article, this style has not received surprisingly much attention in the United States. It’s one of those cases where the good news gets overlooked. I want to dedicate today’s post to the ambiguity and its most plausible explanation.

Is it a statistical mirage?

Almost certainly not. Part of the pattern may be due to underreporting of deaths by less-developed medical systems. Many epidemiologists believe that much of this pattern is true.

In India, for example, major cities keep statistics on total deaths – regardless of the cause – and they have risen less than they have been. In many rich countries. The data indicates that both Delhi and Mumbai have “a much lower Covid mortality rate than in the United States,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha, who directs the Center for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

In Mukherjee’s article, he described a makeshift hospital set up by local officials in Mumbai last year in Dharavi, a sprawling slum there. They shut it down after Dharavi suffered far fewer deaths than expected.

Poor countries are the youngest

Covid is usually more difficult for older adults: more than 80 percent of deaths in the United States have occurred among people 65 and older.

Throughout Africa and most of Asia, the population is younger. Birth rates are higher, and other health problems frequently kill people before they reach old age. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is only 3 percent of the population 65 or older. In Pakistan, it’s only 4 percent. In the United States, the share is 16 percent, and in the European Union 20 percent.

A related factor might be the fact of this Nursing homes Where Covid often spreads from one resident to another – it is more common in Western countries. Outside the west, the elderly often live Multigenerational families.

However, age does not seem to be the complete solution. Statistical models that include age still find unexpectedly low numbers of deaths in many poor countries.

Fresh air helps

Daily life tends to be better ventilated in warmer, lower-income countries. People spend more time outdoors, and windows are often open. Covid spreads less easily in these places than in poorly ventilated indoor places.

There is a lesson here for Americans: schools, stores, and workplaces can Reducing the spread of Covid by Better ventilation.

Immunity may not be uniform

Many researchers believe this is an important part of the answer. If previous coronaviruses spread more widely in some countries, the immune system there may be better prepared to fight Covid. “There is a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Salim Abdool Karim“But there is no smoke weapon,” a South African epidemiologist told Reuters.

Likewise, a team of Indian researchers has argued that deaths “are lower in countries with high populations exposed to a variety of microbes,” such as the BBC. Your voice is whispering Wrote. The large share of asymptomatic infections in India is consistent with this hypothesis, Doctor. Jagandeep KangA virologist in the southern city of Vellore told the Financial Times.

If the hypothesis is correct, it may help explain why deaths are lower in Africa and Asia than in most Latin America.

Policy matters

Rwanda Quickly And the Strongly Forced social distancing, mask wearing, contact tracking and mass testing. And so did many Asian countries. Ghana, Vietnam and other countries restricted entry at their borders. A consortium of African countries cooperated to distribute medical masks and rapid COVID-19 tests.

He said, “Africa is doing a lot of things right while the world is not doing it.” Gail Smith, A former Obama administration official.

Again, though, this seems unlikely to be the main explanation for the relatively low number of Covid deaths. Many Asian and African countries, including India, have had more dispersed political responses – as have the United States and Europe.

To be sure, the complete answer to this riddle includes multiple explanations. Whatever it was, this is one of the few ways in which Covid was not as bad as many feared. Hundreds of thousands of people across Africa and Asia still die from this terrible disease. But many others are still alive today for reasons that are not clear and wonderful.

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Arts and ideas

Why do pop star documentaries feel safe?

Last month, Apple TV + released a documentary called “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” that depicted the singer’s rise and the creation of her Grammy Award-winning debut album. It follows other recent documentaries about pop stars including Justin Bieber, Beyonce and the girl group Black Pink.

Artists or their labels have helped produce all of these films, which promise to peek into the lives of the performers. This is not exactly what they offer.

Celebrities have it Long used Documentaries to manage their photos, even when the production team is technically independent. Music labels are often included in documentaries, partly because “filmmakers don’t have many options: films about musicians need music, and licensing can be prohibitively expensive,” Danny Fante He writes for Columbia Journalism Magazine.

Perhaps the best way to approach celebrity documentaries is to enjoy them for what they really are: thoughtfully designed entertainment. In Eilish’s case, the documentary often feels “almost watched, like a nature movie”, The Times critic John Karamanica He writes in the review. However, he says, “There is never anything other than feeling safe in these shots.”

Like Simran Hans Writes in Sentinel, “The artists continue to use the documentary format as a shorthand – but that fact is still another construct.”