The Coronavirus Explained in Nine Charts
The global coronavirus pandemic has gravely impacted the life of people all around the globe. There are few countries that have not recorded at least one case. Even small nations in the middle of the Pacific or high up in the Himalayas have not escaped infections, showing quite dramatically the force of this pandemic on our increasingly interconnected world.
While the focus of COVID-19 reporting was on China for a long time, cases outside of China have now surpassed those recorded in it. The number of infected around the world is growing rapidly every day and the Chinese outbreak will soon pale in comparison to the size of the global COVID pandemic.
Global recoveries are also quite numerous, meaning that almost 40 percent of people who fell ill have recovered — again, most of these recoveries have happened in China where the current wave of infections has been dying down.
Now, are those numbers even reliable? It depends. Some countries have been testing more and some have been testing less people. That means that the number of unreported cases will also vary from country to country as will preliminary death rates. Yet, those 40,000+ cases reported in Italy certainly translate into a more serious situation on the ground there.
Who will get the virus? Anyone can get it and it is not yet clear if some age groups are less susceptible to being carriers or just less susceptible to developing symptoms. A comparison of affected age groups in South Korea (which offered free and quick testing to everyone) and Italy (which doesn’t) shows that there is some reason to believe that young people are carriers more often than they think.
A sad reality of the coronavirus is that mortality is definitely a lot higher for older people (and those with pre-existing conditions). This instance is exacerbated in countries with large aging populations like Italy.
What can we do? Bearing all this in mind, it is wise to practice social distancing (to stay inside and away from people as much as possible and to cut contact to zero when showing flu-like symptoms/returning from a COVID-19 hotspot/having been in contact with someone who has tested positive).
The real danger of the coronavirus isn’t its high overall mortality rate or the problem of curing it in most cases. It is so deadly because infections happen all at once, producing more seriously ill people than health systems can handle.
So far, the countries hit hardest by the outbreak were at least modestly prepared for a situation like this — time will tell if a country that is less prepared will need to handle a spike in coronavirus cases.
Therefore, measures to fight COVID-19 usually aim at “flattening the curve” or the number of infections that happen at the same time — in order to give doctors and nurses enough time and to free up the necessary equipment to ensure adequate treatment of everyone who falls critically ill.
In conclusion, it is up to every single person to stay home as much as they can and flatten the curve as much as possible. Stay safe, everyone!
Link to articles and sources under each chart.
More infographics can be found at Statista.com.
