World 2.1 million USA 670K+ UK 100K+
World fatalities 140K+ Recoveries 540K+
Yesterday Professor Brendan Murphy released a report based on real data that compares our response to this health emergency here in Australia, to the rest of the world. You can download the report here. I’m not good at maths, but I wanted to know what it meant, so Neil helped me to understand it. In simple terms I will try to convey what it says with a bit more detail than Professor Murphy outlined in his presentation.
The figures that I’ve been using in this blog are sourced here and these are the official figures used around the world, but for several reasons, including the amount of testing being carried out, there is widespread under reporting. This new modelling is based on a mathematical formula that estimates the likely accuracy of reported case numbers and takes this into account. I don’t pretend to understand the maths, but the upshot is that each country should be recording between 1 and 1.5 per cent fatalities of all the confirmed cases.
In Australia, we have around 6,500 cases to date and have recorded 63 deaths, so this is about one per cent, which is why Professor Murphy has said that we are detecting about 84 per cent of all cases. This is a very high number and far better than all the other 82 countries that were listed in the report. It did not include countries with fewer than 10 deaths, such as New Zealand and Singapore, but if you look at the official data and the number of reported deaths from COVID-19 in each country, then multiply that number by 100 it will give you a better idea of the actual number of infected people.
Compare our position to the US which has so far reported about 675,000 cases and about 35,000 fatalities. Based on one percent, if the number of reported deaths is correct, then the actual number of people infected is more like 3 million, not 675,000. If the number of cases is correct then there should be around 6,500 fatalities, so we can assume that there are about 3 million Americans who are actually sick. The report says the US is only detecting between 12 and 26 per cent of all cases compared to Australia’s 84 per cent.
Based on this modelling, the UK is in an even worse position. They are only detecting about 4 to 8 per cent of all cases, and with around 13,000 recorded fatalities, they are likely to have around 1.3 million cases of COVID-19 to date.
Indonesia has reported around 500 deaths, but only 5,500 confirmed cases, so it’s likely that they have more like 50,000 cases at present, that’s assuming all fatalities are being recorded, which is another key question. Even in the UK deaths in nursing homes are not being taken into account. Assuming that most deaths are being reported in these regions, some of the other countries that are doing well at managing coronavirus include; Armenia, Chile, Israel, Malaysia, Norway, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand and United Arab Emirates. But none of the 82 countries listed is doing as well as we are here in Australia, which is why the experts keep telling us how important it is to listen and follow their advice. If we do, we might be able to eliminate the virus completely.