COVID +15

Covid has moderated in Europe and North America over the past month.  South America continues to have significant problems in most countries and the new trend we noted last month, increases in cases and death in South and East Asia, continues though it has still not reached anywhere near what has occurred in the Western Hemisphere and Europe.  In addition a number of African countries south of the Sahara and north of South Africa are beginning to report higher cases and deaths.

Official v Unofficial Data

Last month I reported on the differences between official and unofficial covid death counts and references the study by The Economist which concluded the likely Covid death toll is slightly above 10 million, or almost triple the official reports.  This month we received some indirect confirmation.  Peru's public health officials completed an exhaustive study of deaths in that country since March 2020 and concluded that covid deaths were more than 2.5x previous reports.  The country adjusted its official death count and it is now 5,717 per million.  Next closest is Hungary at 3,110.  The difference between Peru and Hungary is greater than that between Hungary and the #83 country in the Worldometer tally.  I find it difficult to believe that Peru is such an outlier and that other countries have substantially higher death tolls than being reported.

The Official Data

Reported below are all countries with population of more than one million which have reported death rates in excess of 1,200 per million (I've raised the threshold from 1,000).

Europe

Hungary (3110), Bosnia & Herzogovina (2960), Czechia (2823), North Macedonia (2631), Bulgaria (2613), Slovakia (2289), Belgium ( 2161), Slovenia (2142), Italy (2110), Croatia (2008)

Poland (1982), UK (1877), Spain (1727), Romania (1715), France (1695), Portugal (1680), Lithuania 1629), Moldova (1535)

Sweden (1435), Latvia (1340), Switzerland (1248), Greece (1215), Ukraine (1200)

North America

USA (1858), Mexico (1780), Panama (1482)

South America

Peru (5717), Brazil (2379), Argentina (2005)

Colombia (1996), Paraguay (1659), Chile (1650), Uruguay (1553), Bolivia (1381)

Africa

Tunisia (1207)

Asia

Armenia (1518), Georgia (1313)

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On the continuing saga of the origins of Covid 19:

Science Journals, Wuhan and a truly bizarre twitter episode by Matt Ridley 

On the hesitation of some scientists to speak publicly about the Wuhan lab-leak possibility because they would be associated with Trump.  This entire episode has become a disgrace to the scientific community.  Read Alina Chan, a post-doctoral researcher at MIT and Harvard, who took a lot of heat for months on end for just entertaining the possibility of a lab leak.  This is her thread on misinformation regarding the origins of the virus.

Alina has also explained that there is a lot to lose for scientists, especially virologists, if research was the source of Covid-19.

"All at once you’re dealing with your colleagues, institute, reviewers of papers & grants, & the Chinese government.
You’re literally acting against your self interest in every way possible except the interest of not having a future pandemic caused by a research-related accident.

I’ve spoken very highly of sleuths and data analysts who’ve worked on tracing the #OriginsOfCovid but I also need to emphasize that the consequences for scientists are much worse. You could become a pariah overnight, accused of fanning the flames of conspiracy and AAPI hate.  I’m already getting some of it as I tweet. And some well-intentioned people have reached out to me asking wth I’m doing, I have a future that I’m setting on fire. 
When you ask why aren’t more scientists stepping up to call for a credible investigation into both natural and lab origin hypotheses of covid-19, you’re essentially asking why aren’t more scientists also whistleblowers. It’s incredibly excruciating to be a whistleblower. The range of emotions you have to hold on to for months or years, wondering if you’ve got it all wrong and you’re just dragging everyone through a great misunderstanding, exposing your colleagues to threats/danger, jeopardizing your and their careers and happiness.
You cannot ask even 0.01% of scientists to do this. That’s why the search for the origin of Covid-19 has to involve many non-scientists."

From New York Magazine, "The Lab-Leak Groupthink Failure Should Scare Liberals".

A story from Newsweek on the amateur sleuths who investigated the Wuhan lab (Alina Chan gives them a lot of credit for advancing the story).

For those still interested in the myths surrounding the supposed data manipulation by Gov. DeSantis read this piece from PoliMath, The Impossibility of Florida Data Manipulation.  You can read more about the horrible Rebekah Jones, the source of all these false claims, here.