Covid account: Argentina will also overtake Chile and Brazil in deaths per million inhabitants

As of Friday, the news was mixed as much attention shifted to elucidating the next President of the United States. This day, information linking Argentina to North America. It was more health than political. After all the criticism Donald Trump had received from here for his anti-quarantine stance against the coronavirus, our country has surpassed him in covid deaths per million inhabitants: 731 against 730. Almost a tie.

In the coming days, history will take another very hard blow. Argentina would also be above two countries questioned for its strategy against the pandemic: Chile and Brazil. With deaths confirmed until Wednesday, our country already has an average of 761 deaths per million, against 763 in Chile and 767 in Brazil. But with an evolution of the dead that everyone has, change would be imminent.

This Wednesday, for example, our country had nearly 8 deaths per million inhabitants (348 deaths, out of a population of 45.3 million), against a little more than one in Chile (22 out of 19 million) and 2, 5 in Brazil (544 out of 213 million). If these proportions are repeated this Thursday, Argentina will be above Chile. And if the trend continues, it will be the same in a few days with Brazil.

Thus, Argentina will continue to climb the most uncomfortable table to measure the fight against the virus. Until this Thursday, it was eighth, although specialists generally remove San Marino and Andorra from the analysis, because, having few inhabitants, they are not comparable.

If the current pace is maintained, around the weekend, the only nations in the world with the worst average of deaths that will be Argentina Belgium (until Wednesday with 1185 deaths per million), Peru (1,057) and Spain (858). Argentina would soon be fourth (or sixth, if San Marino and Andorra are included) in a table that assesses more than 200 countries.

The president-led government of Alberto Fernández has used comparisons to those countries to defend the vast quarantine here. By the way, different from more liberal and right-wing presidents, like Trump, the Chilean Sebastian piñera or the brazilian Jair Bolsonaro.

To highlight the Argentinian data and the temporary “success” of the lockdown, the government has also been contrasted with more open-minded countries like the UK and Sweden. In the latter case, the substantial difference lay in the decision of the Swedish government to keep its schools open, while the opposite was forbidden here. Well, Argentina also surpassed both in terms of deaths per million population from covid.

Comparisons with data from other countries have been at the heart of the president-led quarantine announcements. The argument was simple: we who are locked up are doing well, the others who defend the openings are doing badly. Health vs. economy. Progressivism which gives priority to life against liberalism which thinks only of money.

The tables with regional and global data appeared from the end of March, successively. Was the contribution they prepared for Alberto Fernández to face the cameras. Thus, he showed, for example, how on May 22 the United States led with more than 276 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, against less than 10 in Argentina.

But since then, the figures have sparked controversy. In some cases, because later it would be checked that there was wrong data. In the table of May 22, Chile appeared with 98.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, and then from this country they answered that it was in fact 3.5. The slippage required a diplomatic apology.

Additionally, there was a crossover with Sweden for a similar question, and Brazil also rejected Argentine government data.

In the latest announcements of the quarantine extensions, as Argentina’s data began to worsen and the country climbed the rankings of nations with more cases and deaths, the films evolved into local versions. More emphasis was placed on the internal comparison, to alert on how the virus was moving forcefully from the AMBA to the interior.