What are the statistics telling us ?
As I embarked on my routine morning jogging. It’s astonishing to see how empty the streets have become in Marseille. But astonishingly how beautiful the weather is as the gleam of the sun penetrated through the Boulevard of Baille. The sun ascending higher and higher scattering its rays in glorious triumph as I noticed, “the weather was very good today”. Could this be a sign of better days ahead of us? Noticing the fragrance of the flowers in the vicinity of the Boulevard drifted over faintly and the sun shone brightly. The street that used to be filled with dozens of people going about their daily routine lives has become as empty as a glass of water. How did we go astray as a human race? What has really happened in the last few months?As these questions lingered in my head.
While its difficult for anyone to answer even simple questions like how many people are asymptomatic carriers or have died from the novel Covid-19 pandemic. Data, scientific findings and probabilities are the building blocks of the World we live in today. Effectively, as homo sapiens we have the notion that there is nothing we cannot quantify, model or manage, given enough expertise or resources. Covid-19 throws most of that out of the window. I believe that in the near future we will have a better understanding of the virus and be able to answer most of the questions raised about the pandemic. For the time being, there is a vast amount of information we don't know about the virus.
Here is some data we have about the spread of the virus:https://www.covidvisualizer.com/
As we can see the cumulative graph above. The number of cases has continued to rise exponentially. But the exact number of the infected is very difficult to gauge in many developing countries because of weaker health systems and a lack of resources which means very fewer tests are taking place. In addition, the largest number of deaths are now in the US, but there is a wide variation in death rates from country to country. This leaves to say that each one of us has a responsibility to follow the outlined guidelines by the health system and reduce the spread of the virus. The health systems have been so hard-pressed that they haven’t been able to test every suspected case, so the real figure is likely to be much higher even in developed countries.
In a nutshell, I believe that in order to bring down these frightening statistical figures. It’s an onus of each one of us to cooperate and follow the outlined guidelines by the health system and reduce the spread of the novel Covid-19.
