I tend to refrain from commenting on these Covid-19 threads because I'm retired, have no debts, have no health issues, have no children, and have an acreage property where I can grow more of my own food if the economy becomes catastrophically bad.
People who live in apartments in congested cities are in a completely different situation to mine, and I do sympathize with their fears and concerns.
However, the reason I'm making this post is the hope that some of you 'experts'
can clarify a very puzzling issue, regarding the number of Covid-19 deaths, per million of population, in certain countries.
I'm Australian, and am pleased at the relatively low total number of deaths from Covid-19, currently at 63, nation-wide, in a population of 25.5 million. The USA has approximately 13 times the population of Australia. Multiply 63 by 13 and one gets 819, a lot less than the current Covid-19 death rate in the USA, which is currently close to 30,000.
An explanation for the relatively low Covid-19 death rate in Australia is because we already have natural social distancing because we are such a large country with a small population. However, the majority of the population still live in congested cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.
An example of a country that has an even lower Covid-19 mortality rate than Australia, is Thailand. This is the most puzzling.
The current mortality rate in Thailand is just 46, yet Bangkok is one of the most visited cities in the world, rivaling Paris and London. The percentage of Chinese tourists in Thailand is greater than any other nationality. Considering that Thailand is not a fully developed nation, has lots of poverty and a very low minimum wage, and has very high air pollution from natural burn-off for agricultural purposes, and vehicles with inadequate emission controls, one would expect that Thailand's death rate from Covid-19 would be relatively high. Yet it isn't. It's amazingly low.
The population of Thailand is close to 70 million, yet its Covid-19 total deaths are significantly less than Australia's which has a much smaller population, and even more significantly less than so many European countries and the USA.
Any explanation, anyone?