COVID-19 (Global) – 2021/05/10

Looking at the bigger picture today, there is some good news. During April the global number of infections kept on rising, reaching a new peak on 29 April with 904,794 new cases. This was caused mainly by Brazil and India which accounted for more than half of the number of new infections worldwide. It is clear that the world is over its latest peak and that the infection rate is moving downwards again. (The previous peak had been on 7 January with 845,473 new cases.) The top ten countries also seemed to have made a downwards turn, from its peak last week of 637,911 to the latest number of 615,546.

On 6 May India recorded its highest number of daily infections (414,433), but the infection rate has dropped significantly from last week, from 2.03% to 1.86%. The only country among the top ten where the infection went up again this past week in Brazil. Brazil’s death rate however is still decreasing, whereas India had a new peak of mortalities on 7 May of 4,194.

Of the 48 countries (which includes the nine provinces in South Africa), 27 still have a daily number of new infections per million of the population which exceeds 50 – my benchmark for a new wave. Of the top ten countries, it is only the UK which is below 50, at 30.85. (This, by the way, is very close to the number in South Africa at the moment, i.e., 29.87 – the only difference being that the UK’s number is dropping and South Africa’s number is climbing.) We also need to keep in mind that 10 new infections per million of the population per day is the magic number for when a country is considered to be relatively safe. (Of those countries I am following, it is only a few countries in southern Africa where this is the case.)

Here is a list of the top ten countries with the 7-day average number of new infections per million of the population:

USA: 122
INDIA: 283
BRAZIL: 289
FRANCE: 273
TURKEY: 264
RUSSIA: 56
UK: 31
ITALY: 157
SPAIN: 138
GERMANY: 174

Over the past few days, I’ve heard renewed comments by people claiming that non-pharmaceutical prevention measures, specifically the wearing of masks, makes no difference in preventing the SARS-CoV2 virus. This of course is against all scientific evidence which proves that masks indeed make a huge difference, first of all, to prevent yourself from spreading droplets that may contain the virus to other people and secondly (in a lesser way) to prevent yourself from breathing in infected air. These findings have been published over and over again in peer-reviewed academic journals. Two of the latest articles I could find are published in PNAS and JAMA. If you want to read more about their findings, you can read the articles here:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536

On 3 September 2020 I reported on a webinar I attended where six professors from a variety of disciplines in the UK were discussing “Long COVID”. You can read the post here:
https://missionissues.wordpress.com/…/covid-19-smaller…/

An article in The Economist reports that researchers are “closing in” on Long COVID. However, the conclusion seems to be that long COVID is still a serious problem without any quick solutions, causing people to become “exercise intolerance, meaning they feel out of breath and exhausted from even small tasks involving physical activity.” Others have “cognitive complaints in the form of brain fog and memory problems.” A third group “are characterised by problems with the autonomic nervous system, a set of nerves that control things like heartbeat, breathing and digestion. Patients in this group suffer from symptoms such as heart palpitations and dizziness.”To understand why COVID-19 is not merely something like a common flu, have a look at this highly informative article:https://www.economist.com/…/researchers-are-closing-in…