Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain*
Note: I'm indebted to Lenox Napier's Business Over Tapas for several of today's items.
The C Word
General
- Beiow is a table I've drawn up from this morning's published data. Might be of interest to some. Comments welcome. as ever.
- 1. It's mystifying to see that Spain is so much worse that anywhere except Italy. 2. Even more so if one believes the allegation that deaths here are being under-counted. I guess we'll find out why in due course.
- Not only are there now more cases than in any other country but New York alone achieves this, with 160,000 cases, against Spain's 153.000.
China
Sweden- It's reported that hospitals have stopped prescribing chloroquine because of severe side effects. Which will surprise few in the medical community.
- The Guardian article reports that only hospital deaths are included in the official figures which, meaning that many care and nursing home deaths aren't included in the statistics in the schedule below.
- María's Day 26.
- Worrying: The health ministry can check through its mobile application if a citizen is where he says he is. The Government approves a rule that allows geo-location through the mobile phone of all citizens.
- I've had this thought myself, about one of the possible societal changes. The prices of some handimen are surely going to rise: Lenox: Those who habitually work in the black economy, without troubling themselves with taxes and IVA, are particularly hard hit in the current crisis. ‘The high volume of the underground economy now takes its toll. At least two million workers will see their income reduced partially or even totally as the crisis continues’.
- Lenox again: The meaning of 'lockdown' seems to be changing as this crisis extends itself: the police are out there because there is almost no excuse left to take to the street (I saw a cop car fining some poor idiot last night at 2.00am from my window - all he wanted was a chocolate bar).
- See Spain's beautiful gardens from your sofa. Or bed.
- Nice to know: The birds have been singing in a different way - because they no longer face the stress of having to make themselves heard above the noise that haunts the cities: traffic, construction, the passing pedestrians and their street [louder than anywhere else in the world] conversations.
- The conservative Portuguese parliamentary leader of the opposition: Prime Minister, count on the collaboration of the PSD. All that we can, we will help. I wish you courage, nerves of steel and good luck. Because your luck is our luck. This (says Público) would pass as science fiction here Spain.
- The dubious power of prayer. The (Republican) governor of Iowa has declared a Day of Prayer against COVID-19. What she hasn't done is to declare a lockdown in her state. And it seems she's ignorant of the results of Fart's national Day of March 14:-
- As someone has put it: If there was one thing that didn't seem to slow the fatal spread of the virus, it was Donald Trump's decision to declare March 15 as a National Day of Prayer. On March 14, the number of coronavirus victims in the US was 2,825. After the National Day of Prayer they had risen to 3,501. By March 23 there were 42,751 cases. Religion, it seems, has no power against the tsunami of the virus. [As of yesterday, the cases total was.469,000]. Right now, the Devil seems to be winning.
- This is a Guardian article on people who are even more inane (and/or dishonest) that their president. Possibly god-fearing but apparently not fatal-virus-fearing.
Finally . . .
- By younger daughter has made another video and now has a web page.
- And a friend has a useful Youtube page for those desperate to entertain kids.
- Interesting foto:-
THE SCHEDULE
The only real absolute measure - assuming reporting is correct/honest - is the number of deaths per million of the population. Which is how the table is set out.
Both of these (crude) observations need to be adjusted for population size.
- Where the ranking by the number of cases is much lower than the ranking by death per million, you're doing relatively well - Germany, the USA (but changing rapidly now), Turkey, China (if you believe their stats), Russia and India (both also rapidly changing).
- Where the ranking by the number of cases is much higher than the deaths per million, you're doing relatively badly - Belgium, Sweden(!?), Luxembourg, Denmark, Romania and Iceland. [Mostly low populations]
Deaths per million
|
Ranked yy no. of cases
|
Ranked by deaths per M
| |
Spain
|
330
|
2
|
1
|
Italy
|
302
|
3
|
2
|
Belgium
|
218
|
10
|
3
|
France
|
187
|
5
|
4
|
N'lands
|
140
|
12
|
5
|
Switz'land
|
119
|
11
|
6
|
UK
|
118
|
8
|
7
|
Sweden
|
79
|
20
|
8
|
Lux'berg
|
70
|
38
|
9
|
Ireland
|
53
|
22
|
10
|
USA
|
50
|
1
|
11
|
Iran
|
49
|
7
|
12
|
Denmark
|
41
|
26
|
13
|
Portugal
|
40
|
15
|
14
|
Austria
|
33
|
16
|
15
|
Germany
|
31
|
4
|
16
|
Norway
|
20
|
23
|
17
|
Romania
|
13
|
31
|
18
|
Canada
|
13
|
13
|
18
|
Iceland
|
11
|
54
|
20
|
Israel
|
10
|
19
|
21
|
Czechia
|
10
|
28
|
22
|
Turkey
|
9
|
9
|
23
|
Finland
|
8
|
42
|
24
|
Poland
|
5
|
27
|
25
|
Brazil
|
5
|
14
|
25
|
S Korea
|
4
|
17
|
27
|
Peru
|
4
|
30
|
27
|
Chile
|
3
|
25
|
29
|
China
|
2
|
6
|
30
|
Australia
|
2
|
24
|
30
|
Japan
|
0.8
|
29
|
32
|
Russia
|
0.5
|
18
|
33
|
India
|
0.2
|
21
|
34
|
*A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.
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