This is revisionism surely. It's true Argentina has move COVID going around, but let's not forget there have already been 150,000 deaths in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Europe had it's time with the virus and is certainly not out of the woods, I think it is incorrect to suggest most European nations handled this any better than Argentina.
I don't agree with what is happening here, but I also cannot pretend that it's all gone, or is going, swimmingly in Europe.
I’m not convinced that the death rates have much to do with the lockdown policies adopted, but possibly, more to do with:
- Advances in medical knowledge on how to better treat serious-critical patients and avoid saturation of ICUs
- Increased personal awareness and risk mitigation measures amongst high-risk individuals
- Mutations in the virus making it less lethal but more contagious
If you look at the death rates in Europe now they seem much lower than in the first months (when the virus was still very new and no one really had any idea how to treat it or even what the virus actually was) despite COVID cases continuing to be prevalent. Argentina was a comparatively late bloomer, but death still comes knocking eventually as we are seeing today and probably now with a lower mortality rate than it would have been thanks to better treatment options existing now than earlier in the year.
Let's look at the past week in various countries to understand the number of new cases and deaths occurring now in August 2020:
Spain - 22,952 cases / 53 deaths (vs. Week of 13APR 28,939 cases / 3,338 deaths)
UK - 7,677 cases / 373 deaths (vs. Week of 13APR 30,885 cases / 6,399 deaths)
Italy - 3,335 cases / 189 deaths (vs. Week of 13APR 23,654 cases / 3,757 deaths)
Sweden - 1,971 cases / 20 deaths (vs. Week of 13APR 3,671 cases / 624 deaths)
Germany - 7,562 cases / 35 deaths (vs. Week of 13APR 19,418 cases / 1,621 deaths)
South Africa - 30,465 cases / 1,467 deaths
Israel - 9,884 cases / 81 deaths
Korea - 720 cases / 4 deaths
Argentina - 46,760 cases / 1,115 deaths
Colombia - 77,915 cases / 2,242 deaths
Chile - 12,879 cases / 384 deaths
Source:
The latest data for coronavirus (COVID-19) cases from the WHO COVID-19 dashboard.
covid19.who.int
