The last time I researched and wrote anything COVID-19 related was back in June 2020. Back then, I wrote a series of weekly “Covid-19 vs. The Caribbean” articles. Every Friday night, I’d scour several data sources for reports of confirmed new cases across the Caribbean, compile the data into spreadsheets, and publish some basic analysis on this site. All in all, I analyzed 13 weeks of data.
Much has changed since then in terms of our economies and our lives. No matter who you are, or what you have (or don’t), you are or have been affected by Covid-19. Life events are now classified as either “pre-Covid” or “post-Covid.” Such is the scale and scope of this deadly virus. Despite that, Science has offered solutions. Vaccines were quickly developed (some would argue to quickly?) and are now being deployed globally and across the Region. We Humans have also learned to adapt, as Humans often do. Of-course, the Virus has adapted (as they often do), and the impact of vaccines on mutations is neither clear, nor certain. Ironically, neither is Life in general, except for death and taxes, or so they say.
Back to our neck of the woods. We in The Caribbean are extremely vulnerable. We are neither mover nor shaker on the world stage (save maybe for some voting rights at international organizations and some geopolitical advantages?). We often find ourselves at the mercy of the global elite. Thankfully, as it relates to The Virus, several countries in the Region have benefited from India’s recent generosity (or application of soft power diplomacy?) in the form of vaccine donations. Still, we must not let our guard down (figuratively) nor our face masks (literally). Vaccinations, either via benefactors or via COVAX, will take time, and this is still a deadly disease.
The table and chart below shows Covid-19 related deaths per capita across the Caribbean. As with my previous Covid-19 related research, please note the following:
- I define The Caribbean as member and associate member states of CARICOM.
- The numbers were compiled today (March 1st, 2020).
- Three data sources were initially utilized: John Hopkins (JH), World Health Organization (WHO) and several regional government websites.
- I found JH to be missing information on some countries, so I dropped them as a data source.
- Some Caribbean government websites were either not working, out of date, or not easy enough to navigate. In some cases, WHO data was also not current due to time lags (Barbados for example, 33 deaths vs. 36).
- To address this, the values in the “Final Count” column took what I believed to be the “best” value of the two (“best” is obviously subjective).
- Population data was pulled via a basic Google query (example: “barbados population”). I also made note of the year the population result was from.
- Per Capita values were calculated by dividing values in the “Final Count” column by the “Google Population” column, and multiplying the result by 10,000.
Table 1 Below: COVID-19 Caribbean Deaths Per Capita.
Chart 1 Below: COVID-19 Caribbean Deaths Per Capita.
If Caribbean “scientists” would spend 1% of the time they spend obsessing about covid, focusing on diabetes and hypertension, they might be able to offer some substantive solutions to real health challenges in the region. But I guess those solutions would interfere with big pharma’s lifetime revenue stream from insulin consumers. No profit in teaching people how to eat properly.
Unfortunately low information sock puppets, spoon fed their learned opinions from drug dealing marketing departments masquerading as newscasters, have little to offer except rehashed pablum about the safety and effectiveness of an untested DNA modifying therapy. How exactly do you pronounce “$$$” ? With no long term trials having been performed, all you regurgitating geniuses better start working on your apology script about how no one could have known how dangerous this vaccine roulette experiment actually was. Can you say oops?