A tale of two pandemics
Very curious patterns emerge when you look at the deaths per 1 million population in different countries. Of the top ten are 5 Latin American countries 3 European countries, and the next ten include USA, 3more European countries and 4 Latin Ameriacn countries. These top twenty go from the spectrum of 1240 per million to 600 per million (Sweden). Of the Asian countries, none of those with populations above 100 million have high death rates, the highest being India at 94 per million. Other South East and Southern Asian countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Vietnam have low rates. In Africa, most countries haver lower death rates apart from South Africa at 340 per million. In Oceania the rates are also very small. This rather curious phenomenon does not seem to be commented on widely. This is not only due to limited number of cases leading to fewer deaths because some countries have many cases, for example India, but relatively few deaths per million.
This is an interesting observation and may be due to either genetic factors or environmental factors. Environmental factors could be related to social practices or to innate or acquired silent immunity to the virus. I am sure some scientists should be looking at these factors to try to find out the cause of the discrepancy. One thing is certain. There is no priority to roll out the vaccine in Africa and Asia, and it is the West and Latin America that will be the focus.