Japan and South Korea seem to have managed to limit the increase in the number of deaths in their country.
Every day, the macabre count of the number of coronavirus-related deaths punctuates the news in many countries. France thus deplored 264 deaths on Wednesday March 18, 89 more than the day before. Beyond the raw data, it is the trajectories drawn by the number of victims who stop. Italy and Spain are experiencing a faster acceleration in the number of daily deaths than China at the same stage of the epidemic. Conversely, South Korea and Japan seem to have succeeded in containing the mortality of the virus.
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In the graph below, you can view the total number of deaths in a selection of countries affected by the coronavirus. Each country appears from the date of the 10th declared death, on the model developed by the Financial times (in English). All data come from Johns Hopkins University, sometimes supplemented by official national sources.
In France, the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus has exceeded the threshold of 10 for twelve days. A duration close to that of Spain, but our neighbor deplores more than 760 dead, almost three times more than in France. Head of government Pedro Sanchez warned Wednesday in a nearly empty parliament that “the hardest part was yet to come”. Since March 14, however, Spain has been on alert and has prohibited its 46 million inhabitants from leaving their homes, except for reasons of first necessity.
These containment measures, Italy took them from March 9, throughout the country. Ten days later, the death curve has not started to decline. On the contrary, the rate of mortality continues to increase. The country even recorded an absolute daily record of deaths from Covid-19 on Wednesday, with 475 dead in 24 hours. The Botte has twice as many deaths as China, at a level comparable to the evolution of the epidemic.
But a ray of hope seems to appear in one of the first regions affected. In Lombardy, the pace of progression starts to slow down slowly but surely. This is not enough to decrease the number of daily deaths at the national level for the moment, but this data suggests prospects for improvement.
Other countries around the world show much less dramatic trajectories. This is the case, in particular, of Japan and South Korea. Lhe Korea was the largest focus of the Covid-19 epidemic, after China, but the country has pursued an extensive policy of screening potential carriers. This is one of the advanced tracks by specialists to explain the reduced number of deaths. “Look at South Korea, which is a country that has been badly affected by several coronavirus epidemics in the past. They have taken drastic measures and they know how to deal with these epidemics and everyone is wearing a mask “, notes Philippe Juvin, head of emergency at the Georges Pompidou hospital, contacted by franceinfo.
A European country also seems to contain the number of deaths caused by the epidemic, for the moment: Germany. Despite a large number of cases – more than 10,000 on Thursday March 19 – mortality remained low, with only twenty deaths. How to explain this “German miracle”? Many tests very early, more places in intensive care and a less advanced epidemic than in other countries, according to specialists.
For the other European countries, it will take a little more patience before observing the effects of the drastic containment measures. “We know that the first effects, if they can be felt, will be felt within a fortnight “ in France, Says Franck Chauvin, member of the Scientific Council established by the Minister of Health, at France Bleu Loire.
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