To wonder why Covid19 is mainly hitting the largest European / American economies

[littlerock7]

I’m not into conspiracy theories, neither am I particularly interested / educated in politics or economics BUT I’m finding it very hard to wrap my head around the fact that the hardest hit countries are all in Europe and are also the heart of the European economy. Then the USA being hit the hardest In their largest economic states but Beijing, South Korea and China itself has hardly been effected?!

Many counties close to Europe and surrounding are hardly effected.

It doesn’t seem to make sense. And call me crazy but I’m starting to wonder if this is some type of attack from China. Does anyone else have an opinion on this or understand it a little better?

Travel. Western countries all have large proportions of the population who have travelled over borders etc.

I wouldn't call you crazy, I'd use a different word, but MNHQ are rather trigger happy lately.

The trouble is, every country reports differently. Until everyone is counting the same, we're not going to know.

Do you really believe the figures coming out of China? Don't you think they might be underreporting? I personally find those figures very suspicious

Culture of travel, both international and domestic

Population density

Funnily enough I was only thinking the same today OP. It could just be a coincidence but....

Population density, population age distribution, population level health issues (eg obesity and vitamin d deficiency), openness to state dictating intrusive measures. Many different factors.

It’s not anyway. People in India and Pakistan and Bangladesh are going to be starving very soon because of their lockdowns. People in some African countries already are.

Travel, service based economy, tourism based economy (Northern Italy).

Being used to lethal respiratory bugs (like SARS1, MERS, Avian Flu) so cultural habits to avoid spread.

Possibly more of a community responsibility rather than individualist capitalism based society

Population density, international travel, poverty gap, overcrowding.

It doesn’t mean that in ten years we will have more deaths, just that it is hitting us earlier than many other countries.

Plus: China and North Korea almost certainly lying, S Korea and Hong Kong learned from previous epidemics and did excellent testing and contact tracing, Australia and New Zealand shut their borders or instituted strict quarantines for arrivals in March. The US and UK are led by incompetent criminals. Italy, France and Spain have also been hard hit but instituted much stricter lockdowns than we have here. German has more intensive care beds per head, plus every country has different reporting strategies.

China and other Asian countries are the sweatshops of the world. Once our economies have completely crashed and demand for goods starts to significantly fall, China and the rest will be severely hurt. Not that they will admit it.

I think many 'Western' countries have kept people alive, when they may have died in developing nations. So we have an older population that is vulnerable to CV.

I agree with you entirely. You are crazy. Thanks for suggesting it.

‘Australia and New Zealand shut their borders or instituted strict quarantines for arrivals in March.’

It is so sad that we didn’t do this.

OP I’ve read your post wrong / I thought you were saying their economy wasn’t hit so hard!

I suspect it’s precisely because they are large economies. International business involves a lot of travel, a lot of meetings/hand shaking.

Population density.
Government (in)action.
Political party in power.
Amount of obese people.
BME populations.
Testing/tracing methods.

Take your pick - all of these and more have been banded around.

Here's an interesting article about this:

www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/world/asia/coronavirus-spread-where-why.html

It's not just Europe and the US that are affected though- Brazil and Mexico are two other countries with growing problems.

A larger proportion of vulnerable population (old age, longer living in poor health, obesity)
More travel to rapidly spread the virus.
More access to healthcare gives better awareness of the spread.
Better record keeping.
Poorer countries have more youthful populations (birthrates vs deathrates, life expectancy)
Location/ climate
People spending more time in enclosed, higher risk environments.

We're the 36th most obese country in the world even though we are the most obese in Europe. www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html

China must be shitting itself - if we all stop buying their crap - which we have done, where is their income going to come from, who is going to pay all the millions who slave for low wages in factories, I doubt if they get unemployment benefit. They'll be starving soon. If no business people in China makes much money who in China is going to buy all the thousands of cars they produce etc etc. How are they going to pay for all the coal they import from Australia to run their power stations. How will they heat their homes. ETCEtc etc
The price of oil has plummeted. How will the middle eastern countries continue their luxurious lifestyles? Etc Etc

Lots of PP have said this but population density, fewer borders, less knowledge of contagious diseases (or less willingness to invest in measures to track and trace) - Asia had SARs to contend with and learnt a lot from that.

Simple geography - the distance from Wuhan to Beijing is similar to the distance from New York to Miami... China “contained” COVID19 in a province with a population not far off the U.K. it affected a massive amount of people there but a tiny proportion of the population (IF you believe their figures)

‘Australia and New Zealand shut their borders or instituted strict quarantines for arrivals in March.’

It is so sad that we didn’t do this.

It's sad if a vaccine is developed. It's not so sad if teh UK builds up some immunity but NZ and Aus have none and can't allow people in without very strict sanctions, and if anyone does get in the virus spreads rapidly as they have no immunity. I spose they can cut themselves off from the rest of the world indefinitely.