Overseas Situation Report Friday 28th May 2021
By Mike Evans
“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Sam Levenson
In less than the five months of 2021, the number of coronavirus cases reported worldwide has surpassed the number reported in 2020. In this report we look at the numbers and what countries have suffered the worst in 2021.
Up until Sunday, the world reported 83.62 million cases this year, up from 83.56 million cases last year. The trajectory of the number of global cases in 2020 compared with 2021 is startling.
The early months of 2020 reflect the gradual rise and spread of the virus around the world. But since autumn of 2020, the global pace of infections hasn’t abated – even with 1.7 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses administered.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in India, the United States and Brazil have outpaced the rest of the world in 2020 and 2021, but the U.S, with half of the population at least partially vaccinated, is the only country where the number of cases have fallen this year.
India, which has seen a spike in infections and deaths in recent weeks, has reported 60% more cases than it did in 2020 and driven a large portion of the worldwide increases. Brazil is approaching 1 million more reported infections than last year.
Of the 10 countries that have reported the most coronavirus infections, four (the U.S Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia) have reported fewer infections this year.
A lack of widespread testing in some places, and an initial lack of testing early in the pandemic nearly everywhere, mean many infections were never reported. Many cases are asymptomatic, also, so many people would not have been tested.
The biggest increases over last year were in several island countries, South East Asia and South America. In South East Asia, cases were 127 times higher in Timor-Leste than last year, 66 times higher in Cambodia, 43 times higher in Laos and 17 times higher in Thailand.
Double-digit multiples in these countries are worrisome, but they also put India’s dire predicament into perspective. The combined number of confirmed cases during 2021 in these 10 countries (512,000) is just one-fifth of India’s weekly average of reported cases in India during May.
Americans still have suffered the most confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths since the start of the pandemic, but India could surpass the U.S. this summer – or sooner – should infection trends continue.
With India remaining the current epicentre of the world’s epidemic there are a number of other less well-documented places where the virus is also rampaging.
Argentina’s coronavirus cases hit 3.66 million on 27th May 2021 since the pandemic began, – medical workers said hospitals were full to capacity despite toughened government measures to bring down the spread of infections.
The country’s health ministry said there were 35,399 new cases over the last 24-hour period, bringing up the grim new milestone, with 532 new deaths taking fatalities to 75,566.
The government of President Alberto Fernandez this week unveiled a new round of tougher restrictions as a second wave of infections has battered the country, filling up intensive care units and setting new daily records for cases and deaths.
“People need to be a little more aware and know that the hospitals are full and that health personnel are exhausted,” said Luciana Berti, a 41-year-old surgical assistant.
The South American grains producer, which has gone through three straight years of recession, exacerbated by the pandemic, is balancing the need to stem the spread of the virus while protecting a fragile economic recovery.
The spike in cases has forced the government to bring in new lockdown measures. The new measures include closing schools and non-essential businesses, as well as banning social, religious and sporting events, reported Reuters.
Vaccination is progressing slowly in the country, with around 19% of the roughly 45 million population having received at least one dose, according to statistics site Our World in Data.
Another country which we have mentioned before is Nepal which in 2020 was hardly affected by the virus. However, since the start of the year the number of cases have increased and many believe this is because migrant workers returning from India have brought it back with them. Many of the returning Nepalese had lost their jobs and income when parts of India went into lockdown to curb the second wave of infections there, the report said.
That caused Nepal’s daily cases to accelerate from below 200 at the start of April to a record-high of more than 9,300 in mid-May,
Nepal is scrambling to secure Covid vaccines. The country started vaccinating its people in January with the AstraZeneca vaccine provided by India and Covax, a global alliance aimed at fairly distributing vaccines, reported Reuters. However, the South Asian nation has run out of shots with the Serum Institute of India yet to deliver the doses that Nepal ordered, the report said.
One country we hear little of is Bahrain. In a country of just over 1.75 million population the number of confirmed cases is 226,416 as of the 26th May. Reported cases in Bahrain jumped from around 600 a day in early-March to above 2,000 a day last week, and this in a country which has vaccinated a large proportion of its people. The country’s latest outbreak has contributed to concerns about the effectiveness of vaccines from Sinopharm and Sputnik. That’s especially so, as other highly vaccinated countries — such as Israel and the U.K. — which rely mostly on western-developed shots, are reporting a decline in cases.
China, on its part, appeared to suggest last month that Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates.” This comment was quickly rescinded by the state media. At the same time in the USA, President Biden has ordered a closer intelligence review of what he said were two equally plausible scenarios of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden revealed that earlier this year, he asked the intelligence community to assess “whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal, or from a laboratory accident.”
The hypothesis that the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab has gained more mainstream traction.
As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” Biden said in a statement. “Here is their current position: while two elements in the IC leans toward the [human contact] scenario and one leans more toward the [lab leak scenario] – each with low or moderate confidence – the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other,” Biden said.
Biden’s statement mirrors the unique way that the intelligence community presents its findings to sitting Presidents. This includes explaining when different agencies within the community disagree, and using a scale, low-moderate-high, to quantify the level of confidence analysts have in the accuracy of their assessments.
“I have now asked the intelligence community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” said Biden.
We shall wait to hear more on this in the weeks to come.
In the meantime, Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 169,262,431
Total Deaths Worldwide – 3,515,664
Total Recovered Worldwide – 150,941,584
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 14,805,183 (8.8% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 154,457,248
Information and resources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#main_table