Covid-19 situation comparison in South Asian countries

[Buffet]

As of May 1, 2020

Country : --- #Test/1M ------ #cases/1M ----- #deaths/1M

Pakistan: -- 825 ------- 82 ------ 2
BD: ---- ----- 426 ------ 50 ----- -- 1
India: -------- 654 ----- 27 ------- 0.9
SL: --------- 1047 ----- 32 ----- 0.3


Number of deaths per million of population is highest in Pakistan and lowest in SL. All these numbers are not likely to be 100% correct, but I suspect it's not like China's numbers which no one can take seriously.

SL being richer than other 3 and being an island probbaly explain the much lower death rate.

Pakistan probably got hit the hardest due to getting initial wave from Iran.

I see tons of discussion in PP without anyone looking at normalized data. That's why I normalized it for per million of population.

I suspect numbers will go much higher in coming days in all countries. Developed countries can keep infection rate lower for a longer period, but it's much harder to do in developing countries especially if they have dense population. Hot and humid weather should help as well and I suspect SL being warmest may have helped to keep rate low. Virus is not going away so it will be important to have PPE and any drug, which can help, widely available in all countries.

I am hopeful that we will see theraputic cures in coming months, but keeping the numbers low till then should be a priority. Death rates in south Asian countries right now are very low when compared to many other countries. I suspect weather is playing a big part in keeping the indection at a low rate.

Ref : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

[KingKhanWC]

This data is a waste of time for two reasons.

1. No country is telling the truth, UK is open about this saying we only count the hospital deaths.

2. We need to wait a year before comparing which nation has the least deaths, infections etc.

 

[Buffet]

This data is a waste of time for two reasons.

1. No country is telling the truth, UK is open about this saying we only count the hospital deaths.

2. We need to wait a year before comparing which nation has the least deaths, infections etc.

Even after a year, data will be not perfect because it's self reported and criterion is different. Having said that, it's far better data than what came out of China so not totally worthless.

 

[SportsWarrior]

Worrying signs for Pakistan and BD is that their birthday test positive rates are increasing. The lock down in India seems to be helping it to reduce the overall infection rates. Pak is doing a good job in terms of testing but they need to increase much more as their positive rate is more than double that of India. BD is doing a **** poor job and most probably quality of its data is the poorest among all the four nations. Doing 5K tests a day by BD is a joke.

 

[Navdeep Srivastava]

Test per million will always be less for India because of big population, overall they have done more than 976k test, I think 8th most in the world.
Don't know about Bangladesh, but other Asian countries still doing fine.
[MENTION=97523]Buffet[/MENTION] you should add Nepal also, they have also done good

 

[Arsal_AK]

Per million is a very bad idea here. Let's take Pakistan for example. Say Punjab has the outbreak and rest of the country doesn't. /million of over population is never going to tell you any good picture of what's really happening. We can get figures like 2 deaths per million for the country, without realizing that the situation is much much more severe, as most of the country doesn't even have the outbreak.

Hence non-normalized data in such outbreaks will always tell a better story especially if your aim is to compare different situations. If you have to normalize it, then you have to be really careful about whether you are representing the ground reality or not, like in above example looking at Punjab only.

India will always have less per million data distribution than others due to such a large population unless they get a huge outbreak, which thankfully hasn't happened.

 

[IndianHero]

recovery rate till now is pretty much the same in both india & pakistan at 27% & 25% respectively which is good

The need of the hour for both countries is test , test & test more till they open international borders for the second wave to come ... But by that time govt.s would be used to this

 

[LongHorn]

Lets compare the South Asian 4 with other similar countries

Vietnam
Mexico
Indonesia
Brazil


Vietnam is praised, however they hardly tested high numbers. They say they have it under control and we take their word for that

In Bangladesh the middle class is pushing doomsday scenarios of "we are all going to die".

Even if testing rates are awful, there are very few places in the country where you have people getting sick and dying

You saw that in Ecuador's largest city where a lot of people died and it was apparent

But so far we have not seen similar scenes anywhere in South Asia

 

[Buffet]

Per million is a very bad idea here. Let's take Pakistan for example. Say Punjab has the outbreak and rest of the country doesn't. /million of over population is never going to tell you any good picture of what's really happening.

Per million simply tells you how impacted country is by this virus on normalized basis. It's not meant to tell you regoinal level break up of specific country.

I see tons of threads in PP saying so many deaths and it's doom and gloom, but most Asian countries have reported very little deaths when you normalize it by population basis.

Total number of infection or deaths without taking account of population is simply a clickbait headlines.

This is also a moving target and many countries may be ahead or behind in infection spread, but it captures the moving picture as it is happening. There will be tons of noise in these data due to self reporting or how it is reported, but it's whole lot better than random opinion without any data points.

 

[Buffet]

Lets compare the South Asian 4 with other similar countries

Vietnam
Mexico
Indonesia
Brazil


Vietnam is praised, however they hardly tested high numbers. They say they have it under control and we take their word for that

In Bangladesh the middle class is pushing doomsday scenarios of "we are all going to die".

Even if testing rates are awful, there are very few places in the country where you have people getting sick and dying

You saw that in Ecuador's largest city where a lot of people died and it was apparent

But so far we have not seen similar scenes anywhere in South Asia

You may not see it due to various reasons. Shutting down before super spreader cases, climate or younger population...

Goal should be to keep it low without killing economy in developing countries. Developing countries don't hold their debt in their local currency and they can't simply print to plug wholes.

 

[Buffet]

Test per million will always be less for India because of big population, overall they have done more than 976k test, I think 8th most in the world.
Don't know about Bangladesh, but other Asian countries still doing fine.
[MENTION=97523]Buffet[/MENTION] you should add Nepal also, they have also done good

India doesn't have less resource than Pakistan or BD on per capita basis. There is no reason to test less per capita basis just because population is big. Yes, Initially due to scarcity of test kits around the world, bigger population are at disadvanatge in testing, but with time there is no reason to not test more.

 

[Navdeep Srivastava]

[MENTION=97523]Buffet[/MENTION].
It's not about resource, testing kits are currently not available, I agree with you in longer run there should no be no reason for doing testing on same proportion.

 

[Yossarian]

Whilst one can understand far lower rates in rural areas of countries like India and Pakistan, due to a greater percentage of the population living away from towns and big cities, in comparison to Europe and some parts of the USA, and thus not as concentrated in urban areas overall, nevertheless, in the big cities, the concentration is as much as, if not more, in some parts of the major cities (the 'slums') in comparison to their western counterparts.

In these concentrated slums, the coronavirus will spread like wildfire. But how many of the people are likely to be tested for the virus, whether simply infected but recovered, or deceased after catching the virus?

In a nutshell, the numbers are low (say in comparison to European countries), simply because they are not tested (and confirmed positive). Additionally, especially among the Muslim populations, there is a religious need to bury the deceased as soon as possible ie ideally before sunset on the day they passed away. Anyone really thinks that, in say Bangladesh or Pakistan, the families would have waited for covid-19 tests to be carried out before burial?

I doubt whether the actual numbers are anywhere near close enough even if you added an extra 0 at the end!

 

[Arsal_AK]

Whilst one can understand far lower rates in rural areas of countries like India and Pakistan, due to a greater percentage of the population living away from towns and big cities, in comparison to Europe and some parts of the USA, and thus not as concentrated in urban areas overall, nevertheless, in the big cities, the concentration is as much as, if not more, in some parts of the major cities (the 'slums') in comparison to their western counterparts.

In these concentrated slums, the coronavirus will spread like wildfire. But how many of the people are likely to be tested for the virus, whether simply infected but recovered, or deceased after catching the virus?

In a nutshell, the numbers are low (say in comparison to European countries), simply because they are not tested (and confirmed positive). Additionally, especially among the Muslim populations, there is a religious need to bury the deceased as soon as possible ie ideally before sunset on the day they passed away. Anyone really thinks that, in say Bangladesh or Pakistan, the families would have waited for covid-19 tests to be carried out before burial?

I doubt whether the actual numbers are anywhere near close enough even if you added an extra 0 at the end!

You cannot hide deaths that much. Majority will go to hospitals in case of complications. It gets around, especially in cities. So no while the cases are certainly much more than those being recorded, maybe an order of a magnitude more, the deaths certainly aren't.

 

[LongHorn]

You cannot hide deaths that much. Majority will go to hospitals in case of complications. It gets around, especially in cities. So no while the cases are certainly much more than those being recorded, maybe an order of a magnitude more, the deaths certainly aren't.

True, like we saw in Ecuadors largest city. Or as we saw initially in Iran (body bags lying in hospital corridors)

South Asia is not North Korea. If here is an uptick in number of deaths much above normal, you will hear about it.

Panicking over new cases is normal but misleading...

If lets say they expanded testing in NYC to include the entire city , headlines would read "Hundreds of thousands of new Yorkers found to be infected with coronavirus"
Does this mean they all "caught it" just before testing? Nope

The way people react is if today 500 cases are positive, and tomorrow 1500 tests are positive, then 1000 more people "got sick" in a mere 24 hours which is not true

 

[Yossarian]

You cannot hide deaths that much. Majority will go to hospitals in case of complications. It gets around, especially in cities. So no while the cases are certainly much more than those being recorded, maybe an order of a magnitude more, the deaths certainly aren't.

In the UK for example, until this week, the authorities have only been counting the coronavirus deaths occurring in hospitals where the deceased had already tested positive, and not been counting Coronavirus related deaths occurring in care homes.

Furthermore, doctors have not been signing death certificates as coronavirus related, (eg for deaths occurring at home or in care homes), if the deceased had not already been previously tested positive (and considering the shortage of tests, they wouldn't have been tested anyway). Taken together, even in Europe, the reported coronavirus related deaths is recognised as being significantly understated.

If that is the case in Europe, what do you think is the case in somewhere like Pakistan, where testing is almost non-existant in comparison?

In a country like Pakistan, with a population of over 200 million, the annual deaths (prior to coronavirus) runs into many millions annually. (natural causes, illness, accidents etc). Probably more than 3 million annually. That's around 10,000 per day.

With very little testing, as is the case considering the size of the population, there's no way on earth that you will get an accurate figure (not even close!) of number of coronavirus related deaths per day in a country like Pakistan. Simple common sense tells you that.

 

[Buffet]

Absolute numbers surely won't be correct if reporting is not correct, but over all trend can be still useful in spotting the problem and taking some actions.

I won't read too much into number of cases because that's underreported by magnitude of 10 even in many developed countries, but number of deaths are less likely to be wrong by the same margin.

 

[LongHorn]

I have never seen stats of this type but something tells me daily deaths in Pakistan during normal times would be in the ball park range of 4000-6000 a day

 

[Buffet]

I have never seen stats of this type but something tells me daily deaths in Pakistan during normal times would be in the ball park range of 4000-6000 a day

Estimate is not off here.

Death rate in Pakistan is 0.7% of population each year with current population profile. It changes by decades, but going by 2018 data.

With 200M population and dividing it by 365, you get 3800-3900 deaths each day.

 

[MMHS]

Does anyone believe in these stats?

I am not sure about other three countries, but the stats for BD is a farce. In BD, now there are over 600 doctors are positive!!!

From mine and wife's side, from up to first cousin/nephew/aunt/uncle - I have 23-24 doctors, including my own sister now working 7 days a week and I have enough information to tell that these stats are total rubbish - made by Hasina's stooges and blacked out by the pet media.

 

[sweep_shot]

Does anyone believe in these stats?

I am not sure about other three countries, but the stats for BD is a farce. In BD, now there are over 600 doctors are positive!!!

From mine and wife's side, from up to first cousin/nephew/aunt/uncle - I have 23-24 doctors, including my own sister now working 7 days a week and I have enough information to tell that these stats are total rubbish - made by Hasina's stooges and blacked out by the pet media.

I agree.

I don't trust BD stats. Situation is probably much worse in BD.

 

[LongHorn]

Are those 600 doctors mostly sick, or is it a case of being tested and found to be carrying the virus?

If its the latter its not something to panic about;

A random test in Kabul showed 1 in every 3 person as having the virus

Similar tests in NYC showed anything from 10 to 20% of the entire city carrying it

So just testing positive sounds awful, but is not the main issue


I wouldn't be surprised if half of Narayanganj and up to 5 million in Dhaka are carrying the virus....

How that translates to hospitalization and deaths is what is concerning

 

[The Viper]

There are fears that the number of infections in Afghanistan could be much higher than reported after one third of people randomly tested in the capital Kabul tested positive, AP news agency reports.

On Monday the number of positive cases rose to 2,894, with 90 deaths.

Although official figures seem relatively low, Afghanistan has limited access to testing and the health system has suffered under decades of conflict.

More than 150,000 Afghans returned from virus-stricken Iran during March, while tens of thousands of others returned from Pakistan, leading to concern that the virus may have spread inside the country.

Last month there were reports that dozens of members of staff at the presidential palace had also tested positive for the virus.

 

[last_knight]

About 15-20% infected show symptoms. 80-85% are asymptomatic and probably will not get tested.
For one +ve case, there are estimated to be 4-5 who are +ve and asymptomatic. Since they are aysmptomatic they won't get tested.

Only true indicator is number of deaths. And that can't go unnoticed. Every death has to be registered in office of local union council and cluster of unexplained deaths in one union council is equivalent to corona deaths. So even if you hide or don't test +ve cases, you can't hide number of deaths.

Office of union council is an official channel with audits and records. Can't hide figures for long.

 

[Abdullah719]

Covid-19 pushing millions of South Asians into poverty

WASHINGTON: Of the 176 million people expected to be pushed into poverty by the coronavirus crisis, two-thirds are in South Asia, warned a World Bank report released this week.

Officially, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had the third, seventh- and tenth-most new cases in the world this week.

But experts warned that the real situation could be worse as testing rates in the region were still extremely low.

Reports in the US media suggested India was testing at one-twentieth the rate of the US.

Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, had up to 750,000 cases, 12 times the official tally.

Daily counts in Pakistan, despite low testing, were on a par with Britain’s and six times Germany’s, adjusted for population.

Spoiler

The US Institute of Peace (USIP) noted that this week that South Asia’s “diverse, densely situated, and economically precarious populations add further complexity to fighting the coronavirus pandemic”.

Another US think tank, the Hudson Institute, noted that the pandemic was “testing the capacities of states to provide security and effective healthcare and to maintain essential services”.

“Recent steps to re-open economies are fueling a rise in cases and risk overwhelming health and governance systems,” USIP added.

The Hudson Institute pointed out that the crisis was also “having an impact on fragile democratic institutions and societal bonds, in addition to putting considerable strains on the economy”.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which approved around $732 million of emergency loans for Bangladesh on Friday, noted that up until the crisis, the country’s economy was growing close to seven per cent a year on average but, “We now project two per cent for 2020, a drop of six percentage points from 2019.”

While announcing a $1.386 billion disbursement to Pakistan in late April, the IMF warned that the pandemic’s impact on its economy would be significant, “giving rise to large fiscal and external financing needs”.

On Thursday, Finance Adviser Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said the crisis could cause a loss of Rs3tr to Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP), which was expected to increase by three per cent, but it will now go down by -0.4pc.

Children at risk
A World Bank report released this week noted that its new Global Economic Prospects report depicted “a particularly sobering picture for India, which is home to many of the world’s poor”.

India is predicted to have per capita growth rates in real GDP of 2.1 per cent. With population growth rate of 1.0 per cent, “this is hardly enough for sustainable decreases in the poverty headcount”.

The most alarming projection, however, came from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Unicef, which warned in a report on Friday that millions more children now risk being pushed into child labour, a major problem in South Asia.

The report noted that Covid-19 lockdowns have crippled livelihoods for about a billion people living in slums and working in the informal economy. Declining remittances and business failures would further reduce demand for workers, cause lower wages and eliminate jobs, the report added.

Consequently, “the number of people in extreme poverty could skyrocket by 40 million to 60 million this year alone compared to before the crisis,” the report warned.

“With poverty comes child labour as households use every available means to survive … A one percentage point rise in poverty leads to at least a 0.7 percentage point increase in child labour.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1563428/covid-19-pushing-millions-of-south-asians-into-poverty