COVID by the numbers

Dear editor:

Let me try to help Mr. Edds better understand my concerns with our current leadership. He suggests that my comparing deaths and cases in South Korea to the U.S. was unjustifiable.

Most people understand numbers. They understand that while America has only 4.29% of the world’s population and then leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths that there must be a problem. America currently has almost 7 million cases and over 200,000 deaths. Yes, we are larger than South Korea but we are not larger than China or India. Yet we top them in cases and deaths.

Add up the COVID-19 cases of all 27 countries of the European Union, plus the cases in China, Russia, Canada, Israel,

Palestine, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, and you still will have fewer cases than in America.

Add up all the deaths in the 27 countries in the European Union plus Canada, the Philippines, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq, South Korea, Australia, Iceland, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand, Jordan, Cuba, Yemen, Nicaragua, Hong Kong, Syria, Jamaica, Haiti, Norway, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Kenya and you will come up with fewer deaths than we have in America.

If you can’t see that we have a problem here, will you ever?

Maybe this example will be more clarifying. The state of New York has about 19 million people. The country of Taiwan has a population of over 19 million but less than 20 million. So you have two similar populations. Yet, comparing the numbers of deaths from the virus in these populations you find over 32,000 deaths in the state of New York, while only seven deaths in the country of Taiwan. Is it not important to understand how countries like Taiwan were able to handle the virus so well?

We must face the fact that the Donald Trump administration has failed us. And the economic disaster we are facing is a result of that failure. Donald Trump didn’t bring the virus here but his inability to handle the pandemic has brought about consequences. Suffering and unnecessary deaths, millions of job losses, people losing their residences and losing their ability to feed their families lies at the feet of Donald Trump. Bill Wiedmann Hot Springs