The cornanavirus is sweeping across Russia but one might not understand that judging from the reported Covid-10 numbers, especially deaths per million population.
The Russian capital has been hardest hit. Of Russia’s total of 281,752 confirmed cases, over half — 142,824 — are in Moscow, the country’s coronavirus headquarters said Sunday. But the virus is now spreading across Russia’s regions, an enormous landmass that covers 11 time zones and includes some of the country’s most remote and impoverished places.
Coronavirus Cases
The above chart from Worldometer.
Massive Undercounts
Russia is in second place but the posted numbers are not believable, especially deaths per million.
Russia defends its numbers but it requires an autopsy to confirm a Covid-19 death.
As with China, no one believes Russia’s published numbers.
Mish
More easing in Europe but virus hits hard in S. America, Africa link to afp.com
Feel free to disbelieve numbers from Russia, China, S Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cuba, etc etc if you so wish. It will be good for your western superior ego, but nothing else.
The only reliable number that matters at this point is excess mortality (as stressed by Chris Martenson), because of the differences between standards.
Excess mortality is not that reliable, the numbers when not averaged show a lot of peaks and troughs.
Still, it does say roughly if there is a massacre going on, or “double flu” etc. .
Russia is fudging their numbers as are Brazil and Mexico.
What is funny with Russia is they closed off China at the start, but seemed to keep contact more open with europe even after there was something of an epidemic going in europe, which looks like the source of the outbreak there. Also Russia has its enemies, so I guess seeding an outbreak by any is a possibility.
The US did exactly the same thing.
Agree with Mish that Russia’s death count is dubious. As the months go by, these anomalies are easier to spot. In Russia’s defense, they may not be counting deaths but at least they are counting cases. China counts neither category.
Still waiting on the results of the mandatory Wuhan tests to see if the same people are getting the virus repeatedly. Apparently the testing began on 5/14 and they’re up to well over 200K tests per day. If results are favorable they will likely trumpet the results. If the findings are ominous, I expect silence from China accompanied by unexplained lockdowns.
Their count might be accurate according to the criteria they set. The autopsy rule is like how working for one hour a week means someone is counted as employed. The UK’s figures on the other hand are very bad, but they also have a broader assessment that includes those who die outside hospital. Even comparing historical death rates will be open to interpretation, since a lot less folk should be dying of flu and other communicable diseases, while some other folk aren’t going for medical treatment and maybe dying earlier than they would have.
From what I gather, Russian national statistics are very clear about only including deaths which can be pinned on covid alone with a fair degree of certainty. There are regions in Russia which report both this official number, and also a number of people who “died with covid.” I believe the second is two to three times higher than the number included in the national count.
I have heard Belgium mentioned as a place where “died with covid” is what is reported, while Germany (and I would hence assume Denmark and Norway as they tend to look to Germany the way Canada often looks to the US) reports a more “Russia like” number.
It would have been nice if WHO had published guidelines for a few different ways of counting at the onset of the pandemic. If those were straight forward enough to be generally followed, comparisons would be much easier.
Russia male life expectancy is 67.5
Female is 77.5
Overall is 72.5
Since this virus kills more males than females I would expect their death rate to be lower because of the lower male age.
The numbers are of course an extremely lagging indicator especially when adding in a backed up autopsy system.
Overall they should have a .7-1% IFR
Interesting point.
Also, Acute Vodka Poisoning, is presumably less likely to be mislabeled covid, than what people in most other countries usually die from……
A very good observation that the average age of a Russian male is significantly younger than the European average. I wonder if that holds true for Third World countries too? It would appear so.
Russia is doing a lot more tests than most countries, which means they are catching a higher percentage of cases. Also, they are another far northern country, and may, for whatever reason, have a naturally lower death rate, just as was true in Iceland, Finland, and Norway. No one knows why their death rate is lower in the far North, but there is no question that it is, and that that lower rate is what allowed Sweden to have the policies they had.
Once this is all over, it will be interesting to see someone untangle why some places report a death rate of 12% and some report a death rate of 1%.
This virus is killing obese black people at an extremely high rate.
Vitamin D seems to play a role in virus deaths. It seems that skin pigment is a good indicator of mortality because darker skins are at more risk for vitamin D deficiency. From a stereotyping perspective I would say obesity is a very large indicator also because, 1. fat people don’t like the sun as much as skinny people, 2. More vitamin D needs to be produced as body size increases to have the same levels. More studies are being done as we speak.
Low latitudes should have a lower fatality rate based on this hypothesis. Light skin pigments are genetically deigned to live at high latitudes with more skin covered. The exposer for proper vitamin D levels will be much lower. Then opposite would be truth at high latitudes for darks skins.
We will of course not know the latitude death data for years until everything is sorted out.
Obesity is a strong death factor along with hypertension and diabetes because it strongly increases the oxidative stress in the blood vessels. When covid further increases it, the results are bad.
As for Vitamin D, another factor is that in Northern Countries they tend to fortify food with Vitamin D, with the result that few are deficient. In the US, so far as I know, we only fortify milk, so anyone who doesn’t either consume dairy, or supplement Vitamin D on their own, is likely to be deficient in Vitamin D.
The evolution to light skin is still being discussed, and there are a few theories. Sunlight is obviously a main part of this, another might be diet, the proposition being that a cereal rich diet from agriculture did not provide the vitamin D that previous hunter gathering did e.g.
If so, then there is an added complexity between being black skinned in a more northern climate and obesity caused by modern western diets. I don’t know the change from say a traditional central African diet, probably more cereals at least.
The lighter skin is not some evolutionary adaptation to less sunlight, but a genetic defect in the biological pathway that produces melanin that was not detrimental in northern climate. It evolved a long time ago, at least 40,000 years. The common ancestors of European (and other) nations come from central Asia, and it was already light skinned.
Now, the question of why light skin was preferred in sexual game is open.
It is still being argued e.g.
but not a defect either, given that hair covered mammals tend to have light skin. The early migration pattern is still argued also, the original european sapiens were present well before the last glacial period, not sure they came from central asia or africa etc., but they held out in europe during the glaciation and then moved north with the retreating ice. That ended around 8000 years ago, then there were migrations from the middle east ( I guess the persian gulf had been flooded :/…true but probably not main reason), north africa and later Indo-European from central asia. Different realities across europe, that only became more complex. The northern germanic tribes ( scandinavia and northern france with occasional forages further), the med, the atlantic seaboard, central europe mix, russia ( from the Rus, scandi conquest of slavic lands and further), huns and asian nomadic, early indian migration etc. etc… there are tens of locally distinct people, sometimes in pockets, sometimes stretching across several nation. I prefer people and cultures to countries, sometimes being within countries protects them, sometimes the opposite.
I guess moving north after glaciation would have been another reason light skin became common around that time, if that is what studies are showing.
I am not arguing about cultures and countries, but plain biology. Apparently, a single gene mutation (in a single individual) is responsible for breaking the biological pathway in melanin production.
The Chinese academy published a similar finding saying the light skin of Han Chinese results from a single gene mutation, but not of the same gene as Indo-European.
I have not digested the real life implication of those, yet.
“Once this is all over, it will be interesting to see someone untangle why some places report a death rate of 12% and some report a death rate of 1%.”
My money is on something as simple as mortality rising with density of infection.
When few people are infected, the average new infected was only coughed on once, and receives a viral dose he can fight off. When everyone around him is infected, he is coughed on by hundred times as many, getting forcefed hundred times the viral load. Which overwhelms him before his immune system can catch up.
Most people, other than the really frail, can handle getting infected by a low dose. As total externally applied dose rises, more and more people succumb. So you see higher mortality, as well as deaths among increasingly younger and healthier cohorts, the more people in a community is infected.
Which is why I would be a bit leery about the whole “speeding it up” thing Sweden embarked upon.
Of course I’m just me. While Anders Tegnell is Anders Tegnell. So I can’t really blame the average punter for listening to him, instead of me. But I still think he’s wrong.
Sweden CFR is very high. Might be other reasons for this, and figures being what they are, but cannot say they have escaped casualties with their choice of approach for now.
I would expect blue eyes to be sexual selection and skin tone to be related to grains like the story states, virus fighting ability, cultural clothing, and some sexual selection.
Viruses have been shaping our(everything’s) dna since the start of time. They have found embed virus information in our dna. This may end up being a great thing for cancer research and other cures.
Sweden has a terrible testing rate so there CFR looks terrible, along with the deaths per million. The question there is how many cases have they had?
I expect the IFR to be somewhere between .5-2% across the world with 1st world, without overran hospitals around .7%. Sweden should fall in line with that.
Everything is still in the process of being studied so the questions still greatly outnumber the answer unfortunately.