What about the Coronavirus and Russia?
There are only 93 cases of the coronavirus reported for Russia (and no deaths). They have been reporting a lot less than that for a while, and 8 are reported as recovered. This is in a country of almost 147 million people.
The Russian case count from my previous posts:
17 March: 93
16 March: 63
14 March: 47
13 March: 34
11 March: 20
Muscovites do travel. I have known a number of them that have traveled to Italy (27K+ cases and counting), Germany (7K+ cases) and many other parts of Western Europe. But there are only 93 cases in Russia. Neighboring Finland has 294 cases (population 5.5 million), neighboring Estonia has 225 (population 1.3 million). Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldavia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, all former members of the Soviet Union, are each reporting between 18 and 52 cases. Only Ukraine is not reporting a lot of cases, only 7. Some of the “stans” are reporting cases, Kazakstan with 27, Uzbekistan with 10, although the other three “stans” are not reporting anything. Russia’s neighbors to the east included Mongolia, China and North Korea. China’s most northeastern province, Heilongjiang, is reporting 482 cases. So why does Russia have so few?
According to an article written on 13 March 2020, Russia had tested as of 12 March 76,963 cases. This is a particularly industrious effort and only three counties had done better (image is above). The article is here: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing
So, either: 1) Russia has been very good (even outstanding) at early testing, quarantining and controlling the virus, or 2) it has just managed by luck to have so far avoided Russia, or 3) the Russian figures are grossly underreported.
Doing a Friday the 13th update even though nothing has drastically changed other than my kid’s school has been closed for the day. It is not under control in a number of countries, in particular Italy, Iran and the United States. If the reporting is correct, China does seem to have mostly contained the virus, and this may well be the case with South Korea. In China on 1 March they were reporting 79.8K cases. As of today, they are reporting 80.9K cases. This is an expansion of around 1,100 cases or an average of 85 cases a day over the last 13 days. For the last three days they have consistent reported 80.9K cases. So it is only growing by a dozen or so a day. Right now they are at 80,945. If the data is correct, then it appears that they have brought this under control even though they have had over 80,000 cases. So, it does appear possible to do. The virus is now expanding faster in several other countries in the world and the number of cases outside of China will soon exceed the number of cases inside of China.
The latest update on the mortality rates for the coronavirus. This has slid out of control in a number of countries, in particular Italy, Iran and the United States. If the reporting is correct, China does seem to have mostly contained the virus, and this may well be the case with South Korea. In China on 1 March they were reporting 79.8K cases. As of today, they are reporting 81K cases. This is an expansion of around 1,200 cases or an average of 109 cases a day over the last 11 days. So, while not completely under control, if the data is correct, this is a good effort considering that they have had over 80,000 cases. The virus is now expanding faster in several other countries in the world and the number of cases outside of China will soon exceed the number of cases inside of China.
