Comparing country performances against the COVID-19 pandemic

There is a lot of loose talk about country performance in the fight against the COVID pandemic. We get this coming from many quarters, public officials, commentators, and many others, well-informed or otherwise.

Country performance. How do we judge country performance in terms of the containment of the COVID pandemic?

There is a daily bombardment of information by country about COVID cases, number of deaths, and other related statistics. Such numbers need more polishing to make them comparable across countries.

Lately, too, there has been a surge of new infections almost in all countries. We are apparently in a new era of challenges: new variants of the virus have appeared to complicate the pandemic problem.

The arrival of vaccines and of country vaccination efforts is a development that we cannot yet compare because it is too recent.

Comparing extreme cases: US vs. China. To illustrate, compare the United States and China. The reported COVID numbers of China are 90,159 cases and 4,636 deaths. In the US, the recorded cases of COVID are 30 million and the number of deaths are 554,516 deaths.

From these data, it is easy to calculate the percent of the deaths to total cases reported for both countries and then compare. China’s deaths to total cases is 5.1 percent and that of the US is 1.8 percent. These numbers indicate that China has almost three times more relative deaths than the US. Has China done very badly?

But examine the underlying statistics beyond these numbers. The population of China is 1,439 million and that of the US, 332 million. The population of China is 4.3 times that of the US.

Therefore, when translated in per million inhabitant measures, the US has 90,931 cases of COVID and 1,677 deaths compared to China’s 62 cases and three deaths.

This stark comparison may appear surprising.

But even in the United States, there is high dissatisfaction with the country’s performance in dealing with the pandemic.

China’s pandemic statistics are often criticized. Yet, China’s containment of the pandemic has been internationally acknowledged as highly successful so far.

The Philippine performance within East Asia and ASEAN. These stark contrasts made me look up the data for some countries in East Asia and ASEAN. From such information, Philippine performance may be compared in proper context.

I prepared a table from the latest international statistics available, taking into account country population (in 2020), reported COVID cases and deaths for up to March 28. The data include the recent surges experienced by all countries, a phenomenon that appears common to all, except in intensity.

From these raw numbers, relative statistics were calculated to derive per million information among the countries.

The results are revealing.

The East Asian countries have numbers that are more comparable to those of China. The most impressive of these are Taiwan’s. The cases of Japan and South Korea (and HongKong’s, now a part of China) have more cases reported, but have a small proportion of reported deaths.

In the ASEAN, Vietnam and Thailand have the most impressive numbers. They follow the typical East Asian pattern, closer to those of China. Singapore’s case is interesting. Earlier considered as exceptionally good in dealing with the pandemic, Singapore suffered recent surges in cases. Large numbers of cases have turned up in areas where most immigrant workers live in crowded dormitories. Malaysia is a moderate ASEAN case.

The most populous countries in ASEAN are Indonesia and the Philippines. They vie for the worst numbers in the region. In terms of cases reported and deaths, Indonesia has bigger numbers than the Philippines. But in terms of cases per million of population, the Philippines comes worse off, higher. In terms of deaths from reported cases, the Philippines has slightly lower numbers than Indonesia.

India, Europe, and Latin America. Briefly, it is useful to discuss India, another significant Asian country, and some countries in Europe and Latin America by using the same analysis.

India, the second largest country in the world terms of population (1,380 million), the number of cases are a little worse than the worst performing countries in ASEAN. The cases recorded are high (11.9 million) and deaths per million of population are larger compared to Indonesia and the Philippines.

In Latin America, Brazil and Mexico have also worse numbers than corresponding countries in East Asia and ASEAN.

In European countries, cases and deaths per million are much more numerous than those for East Asian and ASEAN countries, too. Arranged from highest to lower cases per million are the following countries: Italy, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Russia.

Factors that explain performance. There is not enough space to discuss the complex and specific factors responsible for the differences in country outcomes.

Surely, they depend on: (1) initial government response; (2) current capacity of the national health care system; and (3) the mix of economic political and cultural factors that impinge on group behavior.

This much we can say. Countries that possess the most advanced healthcare systems and backed up with the most favorable wealth and income position may not necessarily perform well compared with those with less resources. The reasons depend on these varied factors.

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