Category Afghanistan

So What Does My Book Say About Afghanistan? – part 3

The old and the new, Soviet tank park next to the Dyncorp compound near Kunduz, 4 May 2008 (photo by William A. Lawrence II).

Picking the discussion up from fragments of text from pages 256 – 258 of America’s Modern Wars:


…if we use the figure of 250 incidents [per thousand], then we are looking at an estimated insurgent strength as high as 26,384 [in December 2008]. This is still based upon a performance that may have been better than what the insurgents were doing in Iraq! We are probably looking at an insurgent force strength that is greater than 20,000 and had been that way for the three years of 2006 to 2008.  

…Looking once again at our logit regression model, if the insurgency is regional or factional, then the counterinsurgency has a 93.1 to 96.8 percent chance of winning. If the insurgency is broadly based (national) then the counterinsurgency has a 28.9 to 48.1 percent chance of winning.

…So again we are back to the same two questions that we face[d] in Iraq, what is the size of the insurgency and is it a regional or factional insurgency.

In a December 2008 briefing [at NIC] I posed that question after presenting this data. I then asked the room full of analysts whether the insurgency in Afghanistan [was] regional or factional, or was it broadly based. I was concerned that it might be broadly based because:

  1. The insurgents came from the majority tribe in Afghanistan, the Pashtun…
  2. It appears that the open source estimate of insurgent strength was again low.
  3. It appears that things were getting worse.

At the time of that briefing, we had 110,790 troops there. The Dupuy Institute estimated insurgent strength between 15,000 and 25,000, with us leaning towards the higher figure. So if the insurgency was a regional or factional insurgency, then even at a force ratio of 4.43 to 1 (assuming 25,000 insurgents), we had an 84 percent chance of winning. Yet, it did not appear that we were winning. [bolding added for this post]

So, the question went around the table, and two or three people there strongly opined that it was clearly a regional or factional insurgency. There was certitude in the voices. I was not sure, but was not ready to argue it at the time.

The danger is that if the insurgency is broadly based, and there were indeed something like 25,000 insurgents, then at a 4.43 to 1 force ratio, then according to our logit regression model, the chance of the blue side winning was only 14 percent. To push the odds up to a more reasonable level of 80 percent would mean that we needed a force ratio of more like 15.5 to 1, meaning an additional 276,710 troops, and most likely the majority of them would have to come from America! Needless to say, as the U.S. was hesitant to build up to 160,000 troops in Iraq, then such a number for Afghanistan was going to be difficult to sell.

We received no substantive response to our briefing and meanwhile the war in Afghanistan continued…

(to be continued) 

So What Does My Book Say About Afghanistan? – part 2

Soviet Hind helicopter carcass used as a monument near Kunduz, 4 May 2008 (photo by William A. Lawrence II).

So the opening paragraph of my chapter (see page 253 of America’s Modern Wars) on Afghanistan says (after the infamous George W. Bush quote):

Afghanistan is an unusual case, as the central government (controlled by the Taliban) was overthrown in 2001 by the U.S. and their Afghan allies, with the U.S. allied with and helping the anti-Taliban insurgents! This U.S. then installed a new government and a new insurgency developed against this U.S. supported government. Still, the insurgency appeared to lie fallow until 2005, when the incidents and violence began cycling upwards and finally exploding into a full scale insurgency in 2009 that now appears to be difficult to control.

I then describe the process in some depth, concluding on page 255:

This left the U.S. and allies in 2006 with 114,066 counterinsurgents facing allegedly only 2,000 to 5,000 insurgents and suffering 65 U.S. killed in action (as opposed to killed from all causes, 65 coalition killed in action, 63 Afghan Army and a rather significant 412 [Afghan] police. Were the counterinsurgents loosing control of the war at that point, only securing those spots they most cared about, and handing over control of the rest ot the country to the insurgents? That appears to be the case.

From there, the war tipped rapidly out of control, with 2007 seeing 83 U.S. killed in action, 99 coalition troops killed in action, 385 Afghan Army and a stunning figure of 925 police killed. The following year was no better, with 133 U.S. killed in action, 125 coalition killed in action, 226 Afghan Army and 880 police killed. The years of 2009 and 2010 have only been worse.

So, what happened and how did the U.S. loose control of the situation? Unfortunately, The Dupuy Institute was not doing any work on the subject at the time. But, we do note to start with that the estimates of insurgent strength again appear low, as was the case with Iraq. In 2006 it was estimated that the insurgents had between 2,000 and 5,000 troops. The U.S. and coalition forces also claimed to have killed 600 insurgents and captured 1,200 more. This is pretty significant casualties if the insurgency only had 2,000 fighters. One wonders how so few guerillas managed to keep the insurgency going with such losses.

By 1 January 2008 the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had upped its estimate to between 7,000 and 20,000 guerillas, which is much better, but when one considers that the guerillas had been doing over 6,000 incidents a year since 2006, it appears that the public estimates were still catching up with the reality on the ground.

In December 2008 we flagged this concern about guerilla force size in a briefing we gave. We noted that the incidents in Afghanistan were on the rise.  

(to be continued)

 

So What Does My Book Say About Afghanistan?

Tank park of Soviet tanks near Kunduz, 4 May 2008. These were left over ordnance from the previous war. (photo by William A. Lawrence II).

Now that America has lost another war, what does my book say about Afghanistan?

In 2015 my book, America’s Modern Wars, was published. It took a while to line up a publisher. I ended up having to give it a complete re-working. I do have a chapter on Afghanistan. This book came about as a result of work we were doing in 2004-2005 on providing a duration and casualty estimate for Iraq. This happened to unfortunately, be correct. See: Forecasting the Iraqi Insurgency | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Then we were contracted to expand our databases and conducted analysis on insurgencies in general. This produced some 16 reports. See I-3 through 14, MISS-1 through 5 and OSD-1 and OTI-1: TDI – The Dupuy Institute Publications

As people outside of DOD heard of our work, we were asked to provide briefings to the U.S. Intelligence community. We ended up with a contract with them (this is OTI-1). At no point in the process we were specifically tasked to look at Afghanistan, although it was one of the 109 cases in our database. Finally, we were asked by the National Intelligence Council to brief on Afghanistan, which we had never done any in-depth analysis of. The briefing was called “Iraq, Data, Hypotheses and Afghanistan (5 December 2008)” This briefing kind of mutated into Chapter 21 of my book “Relating a Force Ratio Model to Afghanistan.” I also will be presenting this briefing “as is” at a conference next September (more on that in January).

All of our work on insurgencies ended in 2009. Apparently, the DOD felt they had a grasp of the issue and did not need our support anymore. So we ceased doing any work on insurgencies after 2009. My book was written 2013-2014 and I did take a moment to update and re-examine a few issues; but, the book is primarily a snap-shot of our analysis and thinking up through 2009. The databases we were using have not been updated since 2008. I have tried to get contracts just to update the databases, but again no interest from DOD. What I would really like to do is update the databases, add in a few more cases, and then update our analysis. Again, not something I am going to do without budget.

So, anyhow, what did my book say about Afghanistan?

First I started the chapter with a quote (see page 253), which is probably a good place to end this particular post:

People often ask me, “How long will this last?” It may happen tomorrow, it may happen a month from now, it may take a year or two, but we will prevail.

–President George W. Bush, 2001, in response to questions in his first news conference 96 hours after the war in Afghanistan had begun.

 

Some Statistics on Afghanistan (March 2021)

I have not blogged much recently about Afghanistan, although we seem to be reaching a decision point as to what to do with the peace deal negotiated with the Taliban by the previous president that called for the removal of all U.S. troops from there by 1 May.

The country has been in open warfare much of the time since 1979. The latest quarterly report on Afghanistan from the United Nations Secretary General is now available. These are always worth looking at as they appear to have less “spin” then many other reports:

https://unama.unmissions.org/secretary-general-reports

The report was posted 18 March. It is dated 12 March.

  1. “The United States reduced it forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 as of the mid-January 2021.” That said, there are also these reports that say we actually have 3,500 there:
    1. U.S. Has 1,000 More Troops in Afghanistan Than it Disclosed
    2. Our troop strength there was around 13,000 a year ago.
    3. There are also around 7,000 NATO and other allied troops in Afghanistan.
  2. “The security situation worsened in 2020, during with the United Nations recorded 25,180 security-related incidents, a 10 percent increase from the 22,832 incidents recorded in 2019.” 
    1. See chart below.
    2. “…the number of armed clashes increased…from 13,155 in 2019 to 15,581 in 2020.”
    3. “…the number of detonations caused by improved explosive devices [IEDs] rose…from 1,949 in 2019 to 2,572 in 2020.”
    4. “…assassinations…from 782 in 2019 to 993 in 2020″. 
    5. “The United Nations recorded 7,138 security-related incidents between 13 November and 11 February, a 46.7 per cent increase compared wit the same period in 2020 and contrasting with traditionally lower numbers during the winter season.
      1. “…armed classes accounted for 63.6 per cent of all incidents.
      2. “Anti-government elements initiated 85.7 per cent of all security-related incidents, including 92.1 per cent of armed clashes.”
  3. “…the number of airstrikes declined…in 2020…from 1,663 in 2019 to 938 in 2020. 
  4. “UNAMA documented 8,820 civilian casualties (3,035 killed, including 390 women and 760 children; and 5,785 injured, including 756 women and 1,859 children) in 2020.” 
    1. This represents a 15 percent decrease compared with 2019, mainly because of fewer civilian casualties from suicide [bombings], from complex attacks carried out by anti-government elements and from air strikes by international military forces.”
    2. “However, UNAMA documented increases in civilian casualties from targeted killings by anti-government elements, Taliban pressure-plate improvised explosive devices, and Afghan Air Force air strikes.”
    3. “In the last quarter of 2020, UNAMA documented a 45 perc ent increase in civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2019.”
    4. “In 2020, the majority of civilian casualties were caused by anti-government elements (62 percent), mainly by the Taliban (45 per cent), ISIL-K (8 per cent) and undetermined anti-government elements (9 percent).”
    5. “A quarter of all civilian casualties were attributed to pro-government forces, mostly caused by Afghan national security forces (22 per cent), followed by international military forces, pro-government armed groups, and undetermined or multiple pro-government forces.”
    6. “Ground engagements were the leading incident type causing the most civilian casualties (36 percent), followed by suicide and non-suicide improvised explosive devices (34 per cent), targeted killings (14 per cent) and air strikes (8 per cent).

 

              Security           Incidences      Civilian

Year      Incidences       Per Month       Deaths

2008        8,893                  741

2009      11,524                  960

2010      19,403               1,617

2011      22,903               1,909

2012      18,441?             1,537?                             *

2013      20,093               1,674               2,959

2014      22,051               1,838               3,699

2015      22,634               1,886               3,545

2016      23,712               1,976               3,498

2017      23,744               1,979               3,438

2018      22,478               1,873               3,804

2019      22,832               1,903               3,403

2020      25,180               2,098               3,035

 

Now, on 29 February 2020 in Doha the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement to reduce the number of U.S. forces from 13,000 to 8,600 troops in 135 days with a proportional reduction in the number of coalition forces. It is to be followed by the drawdown of all international forces within another nine and half months. The U.S. is now down to 2,500-3,500 troops. This is subject to the Taliban fulfilling their commitments under the agreement. There is still no agreement between the current government of Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Situation Currently in Afghanistan

I have not blogged about Afghanistan in a while, since:

Some Statistics on Afghanistan (April 2020) | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Will probably be a addressing it more in the near future. There was New York Times article today that I thought was worthwhile. It is here: The Taliban Close In on Afghan Cities, Pushing the Country to the Brink

One of the odd things when we were doing the insurgency work on Iraq and our later more theoretical insurgency work, we never were asked by our various contracting agencies to look at Afghanistan in particular. This is odd, as we kind of nailed the prediction on Iraq (see Chapter One of America’s Modern Wars). In the end I do have a chapter on Afghanistan in that book and were asked to brief the military advisor to the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in late 2005 and again in late 2008. This also lead to a briefing with the Chairman of NIC.

I still think there is value in having us do an independent analysis of the situation in light of our correct predictions for Iraq and Bosnia (see Appendix II of America’s Modern Wars). I also have a very brief chapter in my book on “Withdrawal and War Termination.” Needless to say, this was a subject I proposed to several agencies that we do more work on, and there was absolutely no interest. So instead I write books. Now, I don’t control the budget over at DOD and other agencies. Sometimes their priorities mystify me.

Old Questions

We have over a thousand posts on this blog. Always interesting to go back and look a few of these older ones.

We had one blog post that simply asked on 9 November, 2016, after Donald Trump had been elected: What was going to be his foreign policy/national security policy. The old post is here: Questions | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The answers are:

1D (Afghanistan: Decrease U.S. effort)

2B (Iraq: Decrease U.S. effort)

3B (Syria: Decrease U.S. effort)

4C (Ukraine: Keep the same)

5C (Russia: Try to tone it down)

6D (NATO: Force our NATO allies to contribute more)

7B (Georgia: Continue working with them: Partnership for Peace)

8A (Iran: Cancel current deal and try to renegotiate)

9A (Yemen: Keep the same (remain disengaged))

10? (War on Terror)

11A (Defense Budget: Increase defense budget)

12? (East Asia)

13A (Trade: TTP cancelled)

14D (Oil and Climate Change: Interest and funding for clean energy declined)

 

It was followed-up on by this post on 14 December 2016: Questions II | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Some Statistics on Afghanistan (April 2020)

It has been a while since I have posted on the situation in Afghanistan. This post is not about the coronavirus (Afghanistan reported as of Sunday 337 cases with 7 deaths and 15 recovered), but about the never ending war there. The country has been in open warfare much of the time since 1979. The latest quarterly report on Afghanistan from the United Nations Secretary General is now available. These are always worth looking at as they appear to have less “spin” then many other reports:

https://unama.unmissions.org/secretary-general-reports

The report was posted 23 March, although I did not see it on their site at that time (I was looking). It is dated 17 March, which is later then they usually file these reports. Probably because a lot was going on with the attempted peace agreements.

  1. For 2019, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 10,392 civilian casualties (3,403 killed and 6,989 injured), a 5 per decrease compared with 2018, but the sixth year in a row with more than 10,000 documented civilian casualties.
    1. In 2018 the United Nations documented 10,993 civilian casualties (3,804 people killed and 7,189 injured). This was the highest number of civilian deaths recorded in a single year since UNAMA began systematic documentation in 2009, and an increased of 5% compared to 2017.
    2. “Since systematic documentation began in 2009, UNAMA has documented more than 100,000 civilian casualties, with more than 35,000 killed and 65,000 injured.”
    3. Woman and children represented 42 per cent of the civilian casualties in 2019.
    4. “In January, UNAMA documented a significant decrease in civilian casualties in comparison with the same period in 2019.”
    5. “Most civilian casualties (62 per cent) continued to be caused by anti-government elements, 47 per cent attributed to the Taliban, 12 per cent to ISIL-KP and the remainder to undetermined and other anti-government elements.”
    6. “Pro-government forces caused 28 per cent of civilian casualties (including 8 per cent by international military forces).”
      1. “UNAMA documented an 18 per cent increase in civilian casualties attributed to international military forces.”
      2. “Civilian casualties caused by the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces increased by 3 per cent.”
    7. Suicide and non-suicide improvised explosive devices remained the leading cause of civilian casualties, representing 42 per cent of the total, followed by ground engagements (29 percent) and aerial operations (10 per cent).
      1. “In 2019, UNAMA documented a 24 per cent increase in civilian casualties from non-suicide improvised explosive devices by anti-government elements in comparison with 2018.”
      2. “Civilian casualties from pro-government aerial and search operations reached record high levels, with a 3 and a 2 per cent increase, respectively, in comparison with 2018.”
      3. “UNAMA also documented the continued elements, including electoral officials and election-related facilities, judges, prosecutors, health-care workers, and aid workers, as well as continued attacks against the Shi’a Muslim population” (bolding is mine).
      4. “The task force verified 10 attacks against hospitals and protected personnel, a decrease compared with the previous reporting period (26 attacks). Attacks were attributed to the Taliban (eight), and ISIL-KP and the Afghan National Army (one each)…”
      5. “A total of 29 confirmed cases of polio had been reported in 2019….Of these, 25 cases originated inaccessible areas where house-to-house immunization campaigns have been banned by the Taliban since May 2019.”
      6. Explosive remnants of war and anti-personnel mines causes 134 child casualties from November to anuary, killing 49 children and injuring 85.”
  2. “Between 8 November and 6 February, UNAMA recorded 4,907 security-related incidents, a similar number as during the same period in the previous year.”
    1. This includes 2,811 armed clashes.
    2. Use of improvise explosive devices was the second highest type of incident.
    3. 8 Suicide attacks this period, compared to 31 in the previous three-month period and 12 in the same period in 2019.
    4. 330 air strikes were conducted by Afghan and international air forces, an 19% decrease compared with the same period in 2019.
    5. “A nationwide reduction in violence commenced on 22 February…”
    6. “In 2018, the United Nations recorded 22,478 security-related incidents, a 5 per cent reduction as compared with the historically high 23,744 security-related incidents recorded in 2017.”
  3. Territory was changing hands:
    1. “On 31 December the Taliban reportedly took control of Darzab district in Jawzjan Province following the withdrawal of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.”
    2. “The Taliban also temporarily captures Arghandad district in Zabul Province…”
    3. “…while the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces recaptured Guzargahi Nur district in Baghlan Province, which had been under Taliban control since September 2019.”

              Security           Incidences      Civilian

Year      Incidences       Per Month       Deaths

2008        8,893                  741

2009      11,524                  960

2010      19,403               1,617

2011      22,903               1,909

2012      18,441?             1,537?                             *

2013      20,093               1,674               2,959

2014      22,051               1,838               3,699

2015      22,634               1,886               3,545

2016      23,712               1,976               3,498

2017      23,744               1,979               3,438

2018      22,478               1,873               3,804

 

As I noted in my post last year: “This war does appear to be flat-lined, with no end in sight.”

Now, on 29 February in Doha the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement to reduce the number of U.S. forces to 8,600 troops in 135 days with a proportional reduction in the number of coalition forces. It is to be followed by the drawdown of all international forces within another nine and half months. This is subject to the Taliban fulfilling their commitments under the agreement. I have blogged about this before. There is still no agreement between the current government of Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Withdrawal and War Termination – 2

Expected first follow-up post to my previous post. I do have a chapter in my book America’s Modern Wars (2015) on Afghanistan. Most of our work on insurgencies was focused on Iraq. Several years after we did our Iraq casualty estimate (presented on pages 15-31 and 302-307) we were asked to do a briefing or two about Afghanistan. This was a little odd, as it was not something we had studied in depth and we never have. All of our work was on Iraq or on insurgencies in general. We never specifically analyzed on Afghanistan or had a contract to do so. Still, hard to ignore Afghanistan so I ended up with the chapter on it in my book (Chapter 21, pages 253-272).

The final paragraph in that chapter reads (pages 269-270):

Given our unwillingness to step up our commitment, then the only question is whether a slower withdrawal will provide more tangible benefits than a fast withdrawal. This we have not examined. Still, this is not “winning” the war in any sense of the word winning. It is withdrawing with the situation on the ground unresolved and a government that far from democratic or stable. We will be leaving behind trainers and other support people, but limited combat troops. If history is a guide, then this government will be replaced one way or the other several years after we withdraw. What will replace it is hard to determine, but will probably include a return to some extent of the Taliban, or perhaps with them leading the new government. It is also distinctly possible that the country will return back into civil war. None of this fulfills our objectives.

What more do I need to say? I wrote that in 2014 or so…..right now the current Afghan government consist of two people claiming to be the president and the U.S. had just negotiated a complete withdrawal over the next 14 months. The negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government start on 10 March 2020.

Previous post:

Withdrawal and War Termination – 1

Withdrawal and War Termination – 1

I have got a hunch that there will be multiple posts on this subject, so have already labeled this post such. The United States just signed a peace agreement today with the Taliban. The United States had agreed to reduce the presence of U.S. troops to 8,600 within 135 days (around 13 July 2020). It is currently around 13,000. The U.S. also agreed to completely withdraw all troops in 14 months (by April 2021?). In exchange, “the Taliban promise to not let extremists use the country as a staging ground for attacking the U.S. or its allies” (to quote from Yahoo news). The withdrawal is “conditions-based” to quote Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. This is more to this 4-page agreement, which I have yet to see. I may get into later.

There will be a separate peace deal between the Afghan Government and the Taliban will begin on 10 March 2020 which will included a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire” (to quote from the U.S. State Department). We shall see how that goes. On 10 March the U.S. will review its sanctions against the Taliban with the goal of ending them by August 27.

In my book America’s Modern Wars (2015) I have a chapter called “Withdrawal and War Termination.” It is Chapter 19 and covers pages 237-242. It is a short chapter because we never really did any work on the subject. Not that we didn’t want to, but we could never get anyone to fund such work. Most of our customers were U.S. Army or Department of Defense (DOD). They were not particularly interested a decade ago in work on “withdrawal and war termination.” Now I think they should have been, but I don’t get to make those decisions.

My chapter starts:

The missing piece of analysis in both our work and in that of many of the various counterinsurgent theorists is how does one terminate or end these wars, and what is the best way to do so? This is not an insignificant point. We did propose doing exactly such a study in several of our reports, briefings and conversations, but no one expressed a strong interest in examining war termination.

Obviously, if the insurgents are driving tanks through the streets of the capital city, the war had ended, and not favorably for the counterinsurgents. But many insurgencies end with some form of negotiated settlement. Many insurgences end with the slow collapse and disintegration of the insurgency. Many of these end with some form of political compromise. Most of them end with some form of negotiation and political agreement, regardless of victor.

And then there is a multiple page discussion on 1) determining winners and losers (easy to determine insurgent victories, but “around one-third of counterinsurgent wins are clouded, or somewhat less than clear victories“), 2) force draw downs during an insurgency (there are only three cases: Malaysia, Northern Ireland and Vietnam, not counting Iraq and Afghanistan) and 3) then we go to these concluding statements:

A basic examination needs to be done concerning how insurgencies end, how withdrawals are conducted, and what the impact of various approaches towards war termination is. This also needs to address long-term outcome, that is, what happened following war termination.

We have nothing particularly unique and insightful to offer in this regard. Therefore, we will avoid the tendency to pontificate generally and leave this discussion for later. Still, we are currently observing with Afghanistan and Iraq two wars where the intervening power is withdrawing or has withdrawn. These are both interesting cases of war termination strategies, although we do not yet know the outcome in either case.

Anyhow, more to come on this.

 

Mortality Rates of the Coronavirus by Country

In my morbid fascination with casualty rates it is hard for me not look at the statistics on the coronavirus and not calculate morbidity rates. Here are the stats:

Country…………………….Cases……..Deaths………Rate

World Wide…………………82,548…….2,810……………3.41%

China………………………..78,497…….2,744……………3.50%

S. Korea……………………..1,766…………13……………0.74%

Italy……………………………..528…………14…………..2.65%

Iran……………………………..245…………26…………10.61%

Japan…………………………..189…………..3……………1.59%
Singapore………………………93

Hong Kong……………………..92……………2……………2.17

United States…………………..60

Kuwait…………………………..43

Thailand………………………..40

Bahrain…………………………33

Taiwan………………………….32……………1…………….3.13

Germany……………………….26

Australia………………………..23

Malaysia……………………….22

France………………………….18……………2…………….11.11

Vietnam………………………..16

Philippines………………………3……………1…………….33.33

Cruise ships…………………705……………4………………0.57

Other countries……………..117

 

Data is from Johns Hopkins CSSE as of 9:03.03 this morning. It is here: Johns Hopkins CSSE

Now, it is suspected that the number of cases are underreported. There are people that get sick and recover that are never reported. Don’t know how many this is. Suspect that the population of unreported cases exceeds the population of reported cases. Have no data to support that suspicion.

A few takeaways are:

  1. Mortality rate worldwide is around 3.49%
    1. If the number of unreported cases is equal to the number of reported cases, then the real mortality rate is half that.
  2. Mortality rate is China is 3.50%
  3. Mortality rate in South Korea is 0.74%.
    1. This is a significant difference
    2. It may be a result of better health care
    3. It may be a result of early detection and quick treatment
    4. It may be a result of better statistical collection on number of cases.
    5. Is probably a combination of all three.
    6. The point it, it is less than 1% with a significant number of cases. So this is the standard that is achievable.
  4. Mortality rate of Italy is 2.65%
    1. Italian health care is good…so…
    2. Does this mean that there are still a lot of unreported cases out there?
      1. So Italy may have over a 1,000 cases?
  5. Mortality rate of Iran is 10.61%
    1. Now the Iranian health care system may not be as good as S.Korea and Italy…but….
    2. This strongly indicates that there is a large number of unreported cases.
      1. Maybe also over a 1,000 cases?
  6. Just for reference the mortality rate of the flu is something like 0.1%.

 

While S. Korea and Italy are tragic and concerning, what really scares me is the uncontrolled outbreak in Iran. If there are over a thousand cases and it is not locked down and controlled, then it can spread, both in Iran and out of Iran. Iran’s neighbor to the west in Iraq (which reports 6 cases). Iraq is a country that is not always in good order. To their west is Syria, which is in civil war. What happens if the coronavirus arrives in a country in civil war. What containment is there? What government run health care is there?

To the east of Iran is Afghanistan (which reports 1 case) and Pakistan (which reports 2 cases). What happens if it spreads there? Afghanistan is in civil war as are parts of Pakistan. Are the Taliban really going to implement thorough and complete containment and provide proper healthcare?

So while the virus may be able to be contained in places like S. Korea and Italy, is it going to be contained in places like Iran, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Will this then become a permanent source of further transmission of the virus to the rest of the world, generating periodic outbreaks elsewhere and forcing systematic containment efforts for years to come?