New Delhi: The first cases of Covid-19 began emerging in Wuhan, China, almost exactly a year ago. Today, what was first identified as a “mysterious infection” has infected almost 8 crore people, and nearly 17 lakh people have died.
In episode 639 of ‘Cut The Clutter’, ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta looks back at 2020 and analyses the pandemic’s progression.
Gupta noted that the virus surprised everyone since no one had any experience with such an event in the past. The world has learnt a lot in this period, he said.
He pointed to a trend where the highest fatality rates and infection rates from Covid had been among the richest countries in the world.
Belgium, where the European Union headquarters is located, has the highest Covid fatality rate.
According to Gupta, the country has a per capita income of about $53,000, which is more than 27 times India’s per capita income.
Belgium has a Covid fatality rate of 1,600 deaths per million. Next in line in the deaths per million fatality rate is Peru with a fatality rate of 1,130 and Italy with 1,070 deaths, followed by Spain, Slovenia and other European countries.
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Failed Swedish model
Talking about Sweden, Gupta explained how the country has a fatality rate of 750 deaths per million. Its per capita income is about $56,000, which is more than 28 times that of India.
According to him, these rich countries were struggling with the pandemic because the population in many of them had an average or mean age of above 40.
Belgium and Sweden have an average age of about 41 while it is 48 in Italy. India’s mean age is 28 years.
Sweden, Gupta noted, took a different approach to the virus and said there was no point fighting the virus or shutting down the country because it could not be escaped. As a result, the country relied on ‘herd immunity’.
However, “Sweden now is a complete mess”, said Gupta.
While other countries are opening up, the country has a high fatality rate, and that is rising. This has forced Sweden to enforce a lockdown after avoiding it for almost a year.
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From social democratic utopia to Covid nightmare
Gupta noted that Sweden, like other Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Denmark, is considered “social democratic utopia”.
They are considered the perfect welfare states with good medical infrastructure.
“In fact, in many of these places, private medical care more or less does not exist because the state takes care of everything,” said Gupta.
In terms of Covid data, Finland has a fatality rate of 84 deaths per million, Denmark has a fatality rate of 165 deaths per million and Norway has 71 deaths per million.
Therefore, in a way they were doing fairly well in containing the virus, said Gupta, adding that this was because they used the conventional approach of lockdowns.
However, in Sweden, the situation has become “dire”.
Gupta quoted Sineva Ribeiro, chairwoman of Swedish Association of Health Professionals, who said health professionals, nurses and doctors were leaving because they were fatigued.
She added that the ICUs were at 99 per cent capacity and the situation was terrible and untenable.
Gupta noted that all countries faced something new with the pandemic and tackled the issues in different ways since they did not have a precedent for the virus, but some got it more wrong than others.
But, he added, two things could not be denied — rich countries have the largest disease burdens in the world and among them Sweden, which had the best healthcare system, “has come unstuck in such a bad way”.
Watch the latest episode of CTC here:
Sweden should open its doors to international health practitioners like Zambia to help manage their covid 19 patients. The death rate is just to high for the country to stand alone