If you are used to reading scientific articles especially in Medicine, you can see the commentaries in the popular press distorting the data. At no time has it been true than now.
Why are there so few deaths, compared to European countries, in INDIA.
Even before you look at the data, you can say, because India has one of the youngest population on earth and this illness does not affect the younger population.
So the context of the data is important.
Remember the anthropologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty?
who said
without context, things have no meaning.
Average age of India’s Covid deaths 60; diabetes, BP common ..
Like every where else, it affects older people, men more than women.
Look at the demography of India.
Why are there so few deaths, compared to European countries, in INDIA.
Even before you look at the data, you can say, because India has one of the youngest population on earth and this illness does not affect the younger population.
So the context of the data is important.
Remember the anthropologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty?
who said
without context, things have no meaning.
Average age of India’s Covid deaths 60; diabetes, BP common ..
Like every where else, it affects older people, men more than women.
Look at the demography of India.
India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35.
Birth rate: 18.2 births/1,000 population (2020)
Death rate: 7.3 deaths/1,000 population (2020)
Population: 1,352,642,280 (2019)
65% of the population is below the age of 35!
in USA it is just 20 per cent..
look at the picture for Spain.
once again under 20 per cent is under 35!
so beware of numbers without CONTEXT..
and look at the graphs below from four countries.
Four countries, in all of them, the curve is coming down, the only difference is that three of them had lockdowns and one of them did not!
But the one without lockdown is an extremely disciplined country.
an educated country whose population is sophisticated enough to make careful decision and understand what the Scientists were saying and not be swayed by Religious leaders or Demagogues.
here is an example of Sweden:
When Religion and Culture Kill: COVID-19 in the Somali Diaspora Communities in Sweden
In Sweden there is a small diaspora community of Somali immigrants who fled war and poverty who make up just .69 percent of the total population. Normally, this diaspora group fades into the background, but now, suddenly, a chilling new statistic brings them to the fore, as 40 percent of the reported COVID-19 related deaths occurring in Stockholm involve the Somali diaspora communities. Other Swedish medical experts estimate 18 percent of the COVID-19 deaths country-wide are from the Somali community.
45-year-old Ahmed Farah from Stockholm blames the community for failing to heed health warnings as well as misinformation from religious scholars,
“Somalis are stubborn people who do not listen to the messages of health and institutions of health and government institutions. They also listen to wrong information with extremist ideas from religion scholars. This is not a people who read and learn about health awareness and who are careful. Somalis are not the ones who take what is going to be taken as history and learn from it.”
So CONTEXT is very important. Culture can save you as well as kill, confronting unfamiliar situations.
When such anomalies come out in numbers, think of CULTURE as one of the explanations.
Kerala in India has done a wonderful job of containing the virus and treating it. they are Indians too, but they are far more educated and open and tolerant and obedient to their civic duty.
GOOD LUCK. INDIA CONGRATULATIONS KERALA
