Читать книгу COVID-19 and Risk - Alaszewski Andy - Страница 20

The framing of COVID-​19 as a form of flu explains why countries in Europe and the Americas were so slow to react. The Chinese authorities had initially been slow to provide information but by early January this had changed and key information was being posted online. This information was picked up by researchers in Europe and North America. For example, in the UK researchers at Imperial College, London published their first COVID-​19 report on 17 January based on 41 cases and 2 deaths in Wuhan and 3 cases outside China (Imai et al, 2020). Despite the early warnings of the virus, most countries in Europe and the Americas did not take public health measures until March 2020.

One way of evaluating the relative benefits of the two approaches to framing risk is to compare infection and death rates from COVID-​19. John Hopkins University in the US produced regular updates during the pandemic based on information from national authorities. It is clear from their data that those territories nearest Wuhan which had the least time to react and used the SARS frame had the lowest death rates. In contrast, those in Europe and the Americas, who had longer to prepare but adopted the flu frame, did far worse. (The following data were accessed from the John Hopkins website at the time of writing, 23 September 2020 [John Hopkins University of Medicine, 2020].) Taiwan had a low number of deaths (7) and lowest mortality rate per 100,000 population (0.03) and other countries in the western Pacific Rim were similarly low. South Korea had 388 deaths and 0.75 deaths/​100,000 population, Vietnam 35 deaths and 0.04 deaths/​100,000 population, Japan 1,518 deaths and 1.2 deaths/​100,000 population and New Zealand, 25 deaths and 0.51 deaths/​100,000 population. Countries in Europe and the Americas had the highest total and population adjusted rates death rates. Brazil had 137,272 deaths and 65.53 deaths/​100,000 population, the UK 41,877 deaths and 62.98 deaths/​100,000 population and the US 199,865 deaths and 61.09 deaths/​100,000 population.