EACH day we read the depressing toll of deaths from coronavirus while the list of new cases never seems to stop growing.
One measure which rarely gets attention is the death rate, namely the proportion of people who catch the virus and then die. It is usually ignored by most politicians but experts take the death rate very seriously as a measure of how a country is coping with the onset of the pandemic within its borders.
The brilliant statisticians at John Hopkins University in the USA describe the situation thus: “One of the most important ways to measure the burden of Covid-19 is mortality.
“Countries throughout the world have reported very different case fatality ratios – the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases.” One standout element of their stats appears to be that smaller countries are dealing with the pandemic better than big ones.
In Europe, the list of death rates shows Iceland with 1799 confirmed cases and just 10 deaths, a rate of 0.56%, the lowest in Europe ahead of Slovakia which has had 1421cases and 25 deaths, a death rate of 1.76%.
Experts are in no doubt that Iceland’s low rate is due to the country’s testing and tracing regime in which they have pledged to test every citizen.
The Icelandic Department of Health explains: “Extensive contact tracing is performed to find those possibly exposed to infection because of close contact with an infected individual and those contacts are placed in home quarantine.”
The Department has proof that its test, trace and quarantine methods have worked. It stated: “A special contact tracing team is run by the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management. Our data support this task, as over 50% of known infections are diagnosed in persons already in quarantine.
“This means these individuals were at home instead of being out in the community possibly exposing others to infection.”
Luxembourg is tackling Covid-19 better
With over 3.6m cases and 257,000 deaths worldwide, Covid-19 has continued to wreak havoc, and one of the most salient measurements of how a country is being affected is not the death toll but the death rate.
This rate measures how many deaths occur in people who have tested positive for coronavirus, and by that measure Belgium is the worst-affected country in the world with 50,509 cases and 8016 deaths giving a rate of 15.87% up until yesterday.
The second highest death rate is that of the UK and France with 15.09%, but unlike Belgium both countries do not count deaths where coronavirus is only suspected.
Scientists are still trying to work out all the factors as to why Belgium’s neighbour Luxembourg has a much lower death rate. Luxembourg has had 3840 confirmed cases with just 96 deaths for a rate of 2.5%, making it the fourth-lowest rate in Europe.
With a population of just 615,000 – slightly more than Glasgow – compared to Belgium’s 11.5m, tiny Luxembourg has a distinct advantage over its neighbour as citizens can be persuaded to assist in the bid to test every person in Luxembourg.
Experts say the small size of the land-locked country and the Government’s testing and tracing regime have been key to keeping the death rate down.
Claude Meisch (pictured below), the Minister of Higher Education and Research, recently stated: “Due to the size of Luxembourg and its limited number of residents, we have a great opportunity: we can test the entire population for the novel coronavirus within a short period of time.
“This makes us the first country in the world to have a complete overview of the number of infected citizens.”
Scotland may have nearly nine times its population, but Luxembourg is showing the way.
Norway tests three times more than Scots
While many experts will tell us that comparing coronavirus statistics between countries is possibly misleading, there is surely some information to be gained from the fact that similar-sized countries have different death rates.
As of yesterday, a total of 65,125 people have been tested in Scotland through NHS labs with 12,709 people testing positive, of whom 1703 patients have died By comparison, Norway, our nearest neighbour on the continent and with a population very close to that of Scotland, has had 7955 people testing positive with 215 dying of Covid-19, a death rate of 2.7% compared to Scotland’s death rate of 13.4%.
The reason why Norway is recording both a much reduced number of deaths and a much lower death rate is being put down to the fact that the Norwegian Government brought in restrictions and switched to testing, tracking and quarantining much earlier than Scotland.
By yesterday, 190,000 people in Norway had been tested, with the Scottish equivalent figure being the 65,125 quoted above.
Norway has already been able to lift its tough restrictions and most junior schools are back in operation albeit with social distancing measures.
Events of up to 50 people will be permitted from today which means that many of the country’s cinemas can reopen.
Norway also has good news for home owners. Though the actual number of house sales fell steeply, the average prices of those which were sold rose by 0.5 per cent.
Carl O Geving of the national real estate brokers’ federation said: “The housing market recovered well in April.”
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