WHY IS SOUTH KOREA LEADING THE WORLD IN NEW COVID CASES?

The virtual source Pandem-ic featured two articles this week:

• The Surge in East Asia and the Pacific. Note how the gold line, which represents East Asia and the Pacific, jumped around January of this year.  

• Effectively, the Omicron/Delta wave overcame that region, irregardless of what government did.
• The second article was South Korea Defies Pandemic Records.
• There is a comparison with the U.S. and U.K.

• However, fatalities in South Korea remained low

• After S. Korea showed a bump in new cases during the first few months of the pandemic, by the end of April in 2020, new cases dropped to zero.

• While cases went up and down for the next two years, S. Korea, like Japan and many countries of the Orient, kept them at low levels.
• Then, in the spring of 2022, everything went haywire, and this region of the world jumped in new cases per capita, and joined the list at the top.
• More so, in January of this year S. Korea and Japan began to lead the world till today. 
• However, the mortality rate was kept low, primarily because of vaccinations.

In summary, South Korea:

• Has a denser population, leading to higher infection spread.
• Plus, record-keeping is accurate.
• Thus, the high rate of new cases today.
• But the people in this country are highly vaccinated and boosted.
• Thus, the death rate was low.
• Here a warning:  IF YOU ARE UNVACCINATED, YOU ARE 4 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE OF COVID THAN THOSE FULLY VACCINATED!!!

From Worldometer, cases in the last 7 days:

• World  286,910
• #1    S. Korea  116,263 (or 41% of all cases--but many countries don't even report)
• #2    Brazil  16,593
• #3    USA  14,413
• Yesterday, for one day, Puerto Rico had 1321 cases.
• #10  Spain  3,108
• #36  Switzerland  200

Deaths in the last 7 days:

• World  1103
• #1    Brazil  320
• #2    USA    107
• #3    Russia  97
• #7    S. Korea  51 (or 5% of all world deaths)
• Thus, 41% of all world cases, but only 5% of all world deaths during the past week.

S. Korea's mortality rate calculates to 0.07%, OR TEN TIMES LOWER than the World at 0.6%, and the USA at 0.7%.  Kind of a bad news / great news situation for South Korea.  Even though they continue to by far lead the world in new cases, their mortality rate remains very low.  One wonders why this mortality rate is so low for S. Korea, as the U.S. also has a relatively high rate of vaccination.

According to the World Health Organization, the World has about 650,000 flu deaths/year.  90% of flu deaths occur in adults 65 and older, a similar statistic for covid.  There are around 1 billion flu cases/year.  Thus, the mortality rate for the flu is 0.07%.  Identical to the mortality rate in S. Korea from covid.

The U.S., before the pandemic, averaged around 35 million flu cases/year and experienced around 36,000 annual deaths.  Thus, the mortality rate was close to 0.01%.

How can the the seasonal mortality rate in the U.S. for the flu be 7 times lower than the World?  Our annual vaccination rate is only around 50%, but is higher than most, with Ireland the highest.  But that source said the U.S.'s rate was 70%, which is the goal of the CDC.    Like in covid, flu vaccines do minimize death.  Further, I suspect that there are many more than the billion per year who get the flu worldwide.  This billion figure is just tossed into most reports as a given.  I haven't found any really good source of this number.  Some day all the above will better be sorted out.  Today, it's amorphous.

Incidentally, click on Pandem-ic to reach their web page.  Gives useful information about this former covid pandemic. Here is one.

STATE OF THE PANDEMIC

Top #3 cause of death last week

4.3 million killed last 12 months

2.3 billion unvaccinated

35% covered by boosters

And an interesting graphic:

One final covid matter.  I suspect this has not changed much, but two years ago, 95% of covid deaths were 50 and older.  

But, of course, I had to check, and found that this number, as of April of this year, was 93%.

The NBA draft starts a 8PM EDT tonight.  Of course, the #1 pick will be Victor Wembanyama by the San Antonio Spurs.  From France, he is said to be 7 feet 5 inch tall, shoots 3-point shots and the most exciting prospect since LeBron James 20 years ago.  At #2, the Charlotte Hornets will get 6'9" Brandon Miller of Alabama.

However, like the Super Bowl, watching this draft can be augmented with a range of proposition bets.  

• Wembanyama at #1 is a -20,000 bet, or 99.5%.  
• Want to be contrary?  Pick anyone else, and the odds are +5000 or 2%.  
• #2 in gambling is actually guard Scoot Henderson at -260 (72%), with Miller at +175 (36%).
• Read this for other props.

The Major League Baseball draft is next month, and the team with the most prospects is LSU.  They yesterday defeated #1 in the nation Wake Forest, and the same teams will play again today to determine who survives towards the College World Series Championship.

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