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2022 dramatically upsets global rankings on Covid pandemic death rates: USA remains a straggler [1]
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Date: 2023-01-10
Was it complacency after early successes? Or sheer bad luck? In 2022, the deadly coronavirus caught up with many of the nations which had maintained sound records in fending off widespread fatalities through the first two years.
Success turns to failure in Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan
Let’s go back to the beginning. Through the pandemic’s first two years, from the earliest deaths in January 2020 to the end of 2021, Australia had managed the disease remarkably well. By the 31st December 2021, Australia had lost 2,353 lives at the rate of 90.7 per million population. That was the fourth lowest among all 52 very highly developed nations. See grey chart, below.
Taiwan fared even better, losing 850 lives at the rate of 35.6 per million. New Zealand performed best of all advanced nations, with just 59 fatalities to the end of 2021 at 11.8 per million.
Analysis at that time commended those governments for prompt border closures, strict quarantining, imposing social distancing and conveying accurate information in a timely manner. Those “successful” administrations were favourably compared with the USA and the United Kingdom which had lost 2,554 and 2,174 lives per million respectively by December 2021.
Then came 2022, with new strains, COVID fatigue across many communities and significant political resistance to regulations perceived to be unnecessarily onerous.
In a statistical phenomenon that defies explanation, the five advanced countries which at the end of 2021 had managed outcomes best were the five worst-hit nations through calendar 2022 – in precisely the same order.
The best-performed nations by 31 December 2021 were New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and South Korea. Through the following twelve months, the worst-performed were, in order, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and South Korea. See blue chart at the top.
Bizarre! What are the chances?! It’s as though the virus has a mind and a will of its own and a warped sense of black humour.
Current success stories
The value of the blue chart, at the top, showing last year’s outcomes is that it reveals which countries now have the virus well-controlled and hence which policies are currently most effective.
Middle Eastern countries have done conspicuously well, with Oman, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar comprising seven of the top eight.
The best outcomes in Europe, which was particularly badly impacted in the early months, were in the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, Czechia and Belgium, all of which kept deaths below 15 per million over the year.
The worst outcomes were recorded, besides those five Asia-Pacific nations discussed above, in Finland, Norway, Denmark and Japan.
Changes of administration
Both Australia and the United States have had changes of federal government since the pandemic began. In each case, outcomes appear to have improved following the changeover, although assigning effects to causes is naturally tricky.
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This is an abbreviated version of an article published today in Independent Australia. The original article is available here in full for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/world-covid-leaders-no-longer-australia-new-zealand-and-taiwan-down-in-2022,17121
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