Wrap of the Week 2020-05-01

2020.05.01

It’s that time of the week when we look back at what’s been going on from our at-home offices. We have been predicting the spread of coronavirus around the world and by individual continent since March 3rd (read previous blogs here: https://mytelescope.io/covid-19). 

Looking at the week through My Telescope 

World

Our global predictions have stayed very stable this week with the only change being Peru rising up the list by one and pushing the United Arab Emirates to the 6th country at the most predicted risk. Something there has been a lot of talk about recently is the comparison of COVID-19 to the Spanish flu in 1918. The world has faced several major pandemic over the past 100 years but this influenza pandemic caused by a virus found in birds, was one of the worst. At its worse, the Spanish flu infected 500 million people worldwide, which at the time was about a third of the Earth’s population. More than 50 million people died of the disease, with 675,000 in the U.S. The fatality rate of Spanish flu was around 2% and coronavirus is estimated at 1%. Both caused by novel viruses, but different types of viruses with different methods of action and infectiousness.

There were no vaccines for the Spanish flu and there are currently no vaccines for COVID-19. One reason the Spanish flu was so lethal was there were no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections, so control efforts around the globe were limited to non-pharmaceutical responses like isolation, quarantine, disinfectants and limiting public gatherings, although then as now, they were applied erratically. The first flu vaccine to be licensed in the U.S. came about in the 1940s. The 1918 pandemic ended in the summer of 1919, mostly due to deaths and higher immunity levels. However, in the case of coronavirus the science to quickly develop and/or test drugs for the disease, has never been as strong as it is now. There are more than 100 ongoing clinical trials worldwide of experimental and already approved drugs that might be repurposed to fight COVID-19, with literally dozens of companies globally working on developing vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that are already in clinical trials might be available to battle a second wave of the disease, although that will depend on when or if there is a second wave and when or if a vaccine is developed. Many experts believe a second wave is possible in the fall of 2020, and most optimistic projections don't have a vaccine available until early 2021, although that will depend a great deal on the types of technologies available, clinical trial results, and the world's willingness to rush regulations in the face of an emergency.

Another pandemic which ravaged the world was the Black Death which started in 1342. The most interesting comparison, or conspiracy should we say, is that the Black Death was believed by Christians around Europe to have been spread deliberately by the Jews in order to take over power. Meanwhile this week Trump has been avidly pointing the finger at China, keep to prove that they are to blame (read more below). 

Given the improvement in medical science and also infrastructure the fatalities of the novel coronavirus will be damaging, but maybe not as damaging as the crippled economy. The wave of unemployment brought by lockdown could send at least half a billion more people into poverty this year, which the World Bank is the first global increase since 1998. Europe is apparently in the midst of an economic downturn not seen since the end of World War II, and the worst is yet to come. “The euro area is facing an economic contraction of a magnitude and speed that are unprecedented in peacetime,” said Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank. She warned that the eurozone economy could shrink by a much as 12% this year. 

On the decline for coronavirus spread currently the countries on our predictions have been China, South Korea, Italy Germany and Denmark. South Korea has reported no new domestic cases since February 29th, and Hong Kong has had no new cases for five straight days. Australia and New Zealand are on similar paths.

USA

In the USA this week the top predicted state at risk has remained New Jersey, and the following four of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania also remaining the same. The north-east has taken a large hit from the virus and the surrounding states are suffering largely due to their proximity to the large city where there is a lot of somewhat uncontrollable spread. This week an additional 3.8 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the six-week total to 30 million, not counting those who were stymied in applying or didn’t even try because the process was too formidable.

Meanwhile Trump’s senior administration officials are pushing U.S. spy agencies to hun for evidence to support a theory that the coronavirus outbreak started in a lab in Wuhan, China. The effort comes as President Trump escalates a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic. Some analysts are worried that the pressure from senior officials could distort assessments about the coronavirus. Which is hilarious, of course it’s going to distort assessments, but fake news seems to be what the states has dealt in from the very start of the pandemic. They are pushing this investigation despite the fact that scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a non-laboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V and Ebola.

South America

This week in the news Brazil has received a lot of attention. Their president is in hard support of keeping the economy open and supported and has since confirmed that he cannot indeed ‘perform miracles’ to rid the country of the virus, despite his middle name being Messias. They are also the largest country in South America and have reported the most cases, but by running this against our predictions it seems the worst is far from over as our data predicts the spread around two weeks ahead of time. The coronavirus landed in Latin America on February 26, when Brazil confirmed a case in São Paulo. Since then, governments across the region have taken an array of actions to protect their citizens and contain COVID-19’s spread.

Africa

Africa’s predicted risk zones have stayed the same this week, however, Africa as a whole has seen a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. Nigeria is in the lead followed by South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco. North Africa is the worst affected region with obviously South Africa being badly affected also and receiving help from Cuba last week. The spread of the virus to Africa actually came quite late, reportedly due to Africa having fewer people who are travelling internationally in relation to other areas of the world. However, now the virus is within Africa, it looks like it is spreading just as quickly as elsewhere. 

Problems are being highlighted though, including that the continent as a whole lacks an adequate amount of ventilators to deal with the pandemic. Also more than a third of Africa's population lacks access to adequate water supplies and nearly 60% of urban dwellers live in overcrowded slums - conditions where the virus could thrive. The World Health Organisation has warned that Africa could become the next epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. UN officials also say it is likely the pandemic will kill at least 300,000 people in Africa and push nearly 30 million into poverty.

Sweden 

This week in Sweden the regions at most risk of spread have remained the same, however, there has been an increased awareness of preventing the spread as five restaurants were shut down in Stockholm for violating coronavirus regulations. 

Despite Lund’s best efforts to prevent people partying in the city park this Valborg by covering the ground with chicken poo, we shall see on Monday how the Swedish public behaves this weekend! 

Sources: 

https://www.biospace.com/article/compare-1918-spanish-influenza-pandemic-versus-covid-19/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52323375

https://www.as-coa.org/articles/where-coronavirus-latin-america