Read on Twitter
Ok we need to talk about Russian and Belarusian fatality rates.
Other countries with fewer than 1% Covid-19 fatalities have contained their outbreaks, like Australia or Iceland. Both Russia and Belarus have cases growing exponentially but way fewer deaths than their neighbors. https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1250736522539786240
Other countries with fewer than 1% Covid-19 fatalities have contained their outbreaks, like Australia or Iceland. Both Russia and Belarus have cases growing exponentially but way fewer deaths than their neighbors. https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1250736522539786240
Hypothesis A: Russia and Belarus are better at testing than Germany, so a vast majority of the cases they register are non-symptomatic and relatively few cases are critical.
Hypothesis B: They aren't entirely honest with reporting their Covid-19 deaths.
Hypothesis B: They aren't entirely honest with reporting their Covid-19 deaths.
Hypothesis A doesn't really hold water because, according to Belarus Health Ministry data (h/t @AlexKokcharov), 67 out of Belarus's 4204 Covid-19 patients are on ventilators. 1,5% critical cases seems pretty average , so unlikely that Belarus has relatively fewer critical cases.
As for Russia, on April 13, 240 out of then-registered 18 330 cases required ventilators (again, over 1%, so pretty average). https://tass.ru/obschestvo/8232349
Thus, the more plausible explanation seems to be that Russia and Belarus are getting creative with causes of death, like not counting deaths of complications of preexisting medical conditions caused by Covid-19 (Russia is known to have done this early on https://www.dw.com/ru/%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-%D1%80%D1%84-%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82-%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%B8%D0%B7-%D0%B7%D0%B0-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0/a-52779885)
You can only get so creative with underreporting deaths, though, so most likely Russia's and Belarus's Covid19 fatality rates are around those of their neighbors (2-3%), and consequently death tolls are 2-3 times higher (not by orders of magnitude, as some would claim).
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