Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Day 75: COVID-19 The Epidemic in Small Places
The screengrab above and the ones below show what’s going on (to the extent data tells it) in the 53 countries and reporting locations with less than 1 million in population. I have rearranged the Worldometers columns and sorted by active cases. The data is as of o:00 GMT last night.*
It is no surprise that small countries squeezed in amongst larger countries with significant epidemics are facing challenges themselves, such as Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, and Liechtenstein. Other places where tourists seek to escape the winter cold have been afflicted as those tourists brought another presence unbidden to their shores. Even the wild places — Greenland, Faroe Islands, the Falklands (the Malvinas if you are Argentinian) — have not avoided the plague.
I have a pretty good grounding in geography but there was one name on the list that I had to look up to place on the map — Mayotte. Turns out it is a possession of France within the Comoros archipelago, but not a part of the nation-state of Comoros (which I had heard of). Comoros has had a turbulent history, so no doubt the residents of Mayotte feel fortunate to have remained with France, even though fewer than half speak French as their native language.
As you can see from the table, Worldometers is now reporting on testing numbers when available.
*Some of the more eagle-eyed will recognize that this is not a Worldometers table. I created it by copying and pasting it into my own spreadsheet. I created a sort of the whole table to isolate the low population countries by simply querying whether the value for cases/1 million population was greater than the total cases reported. For populations below 1 million, the answer would be “true.” I removed all the larger population countries/territories and then also removed some columns to make the table clearer for the key numbers from each country/territory when available.
[Note: Links to all my CoVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
Thanks for this one, Rodin.
I just went and checked the rates per million at the Worldometer site. Here’s the notable information for these small places:
I. Deaths
Only two of these small countries are notable for a very high death rate at present.
San Marino is the highest in the world, by far, with 943 deaths per million. This is almost four times higher than number 2 and 3, Italy and Spain, at 254 and 251 respectively.
Andorra is quite high, also, at 220 deaths per million, close to Italy and Spain.
For perspective, the next three countries after Andorra are France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, in the 96-116 range.
II. Cases
Several of these small countries are at the top of the reported cases per million statistics.
Vatican City (8,739), San Marino (7,397), Andorra (6,031). Then, in the 2,900-4,400 range, Luxembourg, Iceland, the Faeroes, and Gibraltar. All of these are higher than the highest of the larger nations (Spain at 2,668).
By the way, if Vatican City has a single death, it will be in first place in the death statistics, due to its very small population.
Bermuda instituted a mandatory two-week stay-at-home order with nighttime (7pm-7am) curfew. You can go out to grocery shop on days regulated by your last name (i.e., A-K on Mon./Wed./Fri. etc.) and if the police or Bermuda regiment catch you outside when you are not supposed to be you are subject to a $10,000 fine or 6 months in prison or both. They already arrested three people. For an island with a population of about 72 thousand and about 21 active cases and only 4 in hospital…well, they apparently think they are going to become like Elmhurst, Queens. Harsh.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/coronavirus-new-york-blood-center-plasma-donations-recovered-covid-19-patients
plasma donations
Andorra is a major skiing venue- particularly popular with students from all over Europe due to low prices. My daughter was there in January. Randomly, my wife was in Luxembourg for a couple of nights with her friends in late February. Weekend breaks are a huge thing on this side of the Atlantic.
I have been following the cases in East Africa for a while now. Kenya picked up the first cases which makes sense since they are a major airport hub in the area (lost of weekly flights direct from China). Then over the past two weeks other countries have been added to the list with small numbers:
Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda.
Uganda was early to the game (early March) with having all travelers self quarantine for two weeks after arrival and doing better medical screening at airports but with their porous borders….
The last two: Botswana and Malawi finally trailed in last week which makes a certain amount of sense since they are more off the beaten track (as it were).
Generally speaking most travelers move through East Africa use buses which are significantly cheaper that flying. The buses are overcrowded and a good spot to pass a virus around.
I am in direct touch with the family in Zambia. They are sheltering at home and, quite frankly, terrified since the medical facilities there are rudimentary at best for the common man. General rule: If you get sick, go to South Africa for treatment.