It eventually reached far-flung places like islands in Alaska and the South Pacific and infected a third of the world’s population.“We are really early in this disease,” said Dr. Russia and Turkey appeared to be fine until, suddenly, they were not.Time may still prove the greatest equalizer: The Spanish flu that broke out in the United States in 1918 seemed to die down during the summer only to come roaring back with a deadlier strain in the fall, and a third wave the following year. But countries like Peru, Indonesia and Brazil, tropical countries in the throes of growing epidemics, throw cold water on that idea.One theory that is unproven but impossible to refute: maybe the virus just hasn’t gotten to those countries yet. Teams in multiple countries are studying if common hypertension medications might worsen the disease’s severity and whether a particular tuberculosis vaccine might do the opposite.Many developing nations with hot climates and young populations have escaped the worst, suggesting that temperature and demographics could be factors.
Quite Imposing 5 Serial Full Epidemiological Picture
Even in places with abysmal record-keeping and broken health systems, mass burials or hospitals turning away sick people by the thousands would be hard to miss, and a number of places are just not seeing them — at least not yet.Interviews with more than two dozen infectious disease experts, health officials, epidemiologists and academics around the globe suggest four main factors that could help explain where the virus thrives and where it doesn’t: demographics, culture, environment and the speed of government responses.Each possible explanation comes with considerable caveats and confounding counter-evidence. Testing is woeful in many places, leading to vast underestimates of the virus’s progress, and deaths are almost certainly undercounted.Still, the broad patterns are clear. “If this were a baseball game, it would be the second inning and there’s no reason to think that by the ninth inning the rest of the world that looks now like it hasn’t been affected won’t become like other places.”Doctors who study infectious diseases around the world say they do not have enough data yet to get a full epidemiological picture, and that gaps in information in many countries make it dangerous to draw conclusions.
Japan, with the world’s oldest average population, has recorded fewer than 520 deaths, although its caseload has risen with increased testing.The Guayas region of Ecuador, the epicenter of an outbreak that may have claimed up to 7,000 lives, is one of the youngest in the country, with only 11 percent of its residents over 60 years old.And Dr. The average age of those who died of Covid-19 there was around 80.Along with youth, relative good health can lessen the impact of the virus among those who are infected, while certain pre-existing conditions — notably hypertension, diabetes and obesity — can worsen the severity, researchers in the United States say.There are notable exceptions to the demographic theory. In Thailand and Najaf, Iraq, local health officials found that the 20-to-29 age group had the highest rate of infection but often showed few symptoms.By contrast, the national median age in Italy, one of the hardest hit countries, is more than 45. And they are less likely to have certain health problems that can make Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, particularly deadly, according to the World Health Organization.Africa — with about 45,000 reported cases, a tiny fraction of its 1.3 billion people — is the world’s youngest continent, with more than 60 percent of its population under age 25. The Power of YouthMany countries that have escaped mass epidemics have relatively younger populations.Young people are more likely to contract mild or asymptomatic cases that are less transmissible to others, said Robert Bollinger, a professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Nonetheless these are the factors that experts find the most persuasive.
Health experts in Africa cite limited travel from abroad as perhaps the main reason for the continent’s relatively low infection rate.Countries that are less accessible for political reasons, like Venezuela, or because of conflict, like Syria and Libya, have also been somewhat shielded by the lack of travelers, as have countries like Lebanon and Iraq, which have endured widespread protests in recent months.The lack of public transportation in developing countries may have also reduced the spread of the virus there. Countries that are relatively isolated have reaped health benefits from their seclusion.Far-flung nations, such as some in the South Pacific and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, have not been as inundated with visitors bringing the virus with them. In many parts of the Middle East, such as Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries, men often embrace or shake hands on meeting, yet most are not getting sick.What might be called “national distancing” has also proven advantageous. In Japan and South Korea, people bow, and long before the coronavirus arrived, they tended to wear face masks when feeling unwell.In much of the developing world, the custom of caring for the elderly at home leads to fewer nursing homes, which have been tinder for tragic outbreaks in the West.However, there are notable exceptions to the cultural distancing theory. Cultural DistanceCultural factors, like the social distancing that is built into certain societies, may give some countries more protection, epidemiologists said.In Thailand and India, where virus numbers are relatively low, people greet each other at a distance, with palms joined together as in prayer.
Health ministries began contact tracing early.All this happened in a region where health ministries had come to rely on money, personnel and supplies from foreign donors, many of which had to turn their attention to outbreaks in their own countries, said Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center.“Countries wake up one day and they’re like, ‘OK, the weight of the country rests on our shoulders, so we need to step up,’” she said. “Some were even going out on purpose to sunbathe, thinking it would protect them from infection.” Early and Strict LockdownsCountries that locked down early, like Vietnam and Greece, have been able to avoid out-of-control contagions, evidence of the power of strict social distancing and quarantines to contain the virus.In Africa, countries with bitter experience with killers like H.I.V., drug-resistant tuberculosis and Ebola knew the drill and reacted quickly.Airport staff from Sierra Leone to Uganda were taking temperatures (since found to be a less effective measure) and contact details and wearing masks long before their counterparts in the United States and Europe took such precautions.Senegal and Rwanda closed their borders and announced curfews when they still had very few cases. Doménica Cevallos, a medical investigator in Ecuador. Other coronaviruses, such as ones that cause the common cold, are less contagious in warmer, moist climates.“People were saying ‘It’s hot here, nothing will happen to me,’” said Dr.
Quite Imposing 5 Serial Drivers A Day
But many of those who test positive have come from Tanzania and Kenya, countries that are not monitoring as aggressively, leading to worries that the virus will keep penetrating porous borders.A notable exception was Iran, which did not close some of its largest shrines until March 18, a full month after it registered its first case in the pilgrimage city of Qum. Authorities also tracked down about 800 others who had traveled from Dubai in previous weeks.The Ugandan health authorities are also testing around 1,000 truck drivers a day. The government set up emergency operations centers in every district and recruited 14,000 community health workers, 1,500 of whom are being trained as contact tracers, even though Sierra Leone has only about 155 confirmed cases.It is not clear, however, who will pay for their salaries or for expenses like motorcycles and raincoats to keep them operating during the coming wet season.Uganda, which also suffered during the Ebola contagion, quickly quarantined travelers from Dubai after the first case of coronavirus arrived from there.
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