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Hello TCV readers, welcome to this new subsection of News. This year News Editors will be each write a “Question the numbers: The Backstory of Statistics” series every other issue in which we examine commonly circulated statistics and work to make sense of what they mean, and how they might be limited in representing a given situation. Since numbers are often treated as neutral or objective we hope to use this section to explore this assumption and better understand what purpose it serves. Have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions for what numbers to feature? Reach out to the News Editors at aacheson@conncoll.edu and eroy1@conncoll.edu.
Take a quick glance through headlines and you will see: “US Averaging 100,000 New Covid-19 Infections Per Day,” or “A Winter Surge in Covid-19 Cases Seems Inevitable.” Sometimes the way in which rising daily COVID-19 cases are reported in the US give the sense that the virus’ continued spread is either entirely inevitable or the result of individual failings.. Although citing the number of rising cases or the number of deaths from the virus is crucial, only reporting these statistics can misrepresent these numbers as evidence of an unavoidable tragedy, something from which we can only mourn and move on. In fact, the vast majority of deaths and infections were preventable, and this has to be reckoned with if we are to stop Covid-19 and any other infectious diseases that may arise in future.
Other Countries’ Success Proves This was Avoidable
In a study published by Columbia University in late October, researchers estimated that anywhere from 130,000 to 210,000 deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented with central planning. They write, “Many of the underlying factors amplifying the pandemic’s deadly impact have existed long before the novel coronavirus first arrived in Washington state on January 20th – a fractured healthcare system, inequitable access to care, and immense health, social and racial disparities among America’s most vulnerable groups.” Even so, the report argues, many other countries were able to avoid the disproportionate devastation occuring in the US. Looking at other wealthy countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Canada, the report quantifies how many lives could have been saved “if only U.S. officials had undertaken appropriate public health policies, guidance, and leadership at the pace of other high-income nations.”
As this report makes clear, much of the devastating impacts of the pandemic were avoidable. By focusing exclusively on high-income countries, however, the report implies that only wealthy countries could have responded effectively to this pandemic. The US has proven that wealth does not in and of itself guarantee a country’s people’s needs will be met. Laos and South Africa’s response shows that the inverse is also true: relatively less wealth does not mean that protecting one’s people from the virus is impossible. It is simply a matter of political will.
On June 10, Laos’ Prime Minister announced that the last patient with Covid-19 had been discharged from the hospital, after 59 consecutive days of no new infections. By that same day, nearly 2 million people had been infected in the US, and already over 108,000 people had died from the virus. Laos’ response was proactive from the beginning. According to a summer article by Vijay Prashad, after a tourist who visited Laos tested positive in his home country, Laotian officials retraced his steps and tested all who had come into contact with him back in early February. Following this, Laos reduced its flights to China and began requiring that those entering the country quarantine for two weeks (despite the impact this would have on Laos’ tourist trade which is heavily reliant on travellers from China.) Those entering the country also had their temperature checked and were rigorously tested to prevent further new infections. On Nov. 17, Laos announced its 25th confirmed COVID-19case. The country’s continued suspension of tourist visas for foreigners and swift moves to contain the spread of the virus seems to have inspired confidence among government decision-makers that reopening bars and nightclubs will not pose a significant health risk.
Hubris Mixed with Patronizing Amnesia
Early on in the pandemic, many people in the U.S. and Western Europe anticipated coming devastation from the pandemic disease on the continent of Africa, including members of the World Health Organization. However, as a whole, African countries have responded with swift, preventative, internationally-coordinated efforts and have made use of decades of experience fighting infectious diseases to keep the spread of COVID-19 down. Despite being the richest country in the world, the U.S. has been unable to respond in such ways for its own people, let alone coordinate efforts with other countries in the Americas.
According to a recent Voice of America article, “South Africa remains the continent’s epicenter, with 750,000 known cases, according to World Health Organization statistics, since the virus first landed in early March. The reason that number is not greater… is that the continent acted swiftly.” Even the continental epicenter of the pandemic, however, pales in comparison to the number of infections and deaths in the US. With a population of 59.6 million people, an estimated 0.027% of South Africa’s population has been infected with COVID-19. In the US, 3% of the population, over 11 million people, have been infected with the virus. This means that so far for every 1 person infected in South Africa, 111 people have been infected in the US. South Africa’s quick response to contain the virus is part of a broader effort led by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention which has consistently worked to coordinate efforts to fight the disease among neighboring countries and to facilitate collaboration to deliver faster testing and contact tracing.
What these countries’ efforts show is that the 245,537 people who have died in the US so far (a number that does not include the many Americans who have survived the virus but now have long-term health impairments as a result) is not so much the result of individual actions, but a failure of people in power to take decisive action early on.
Where Does Conn Fit in?
On a much smaller scale, Conn’s own success with preventing infection and containing spread is further evidence of how crucial central planning is to fighting this pandemic. Connecticut College’s testing center and detailed planning has so far proven successful at identifying outbreaks and quarantining those exposed. Students on campus are currently tested twice per week on a Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday schedule (depending on students’ residence), and receive the results of their test within roughly 24-hours. Staff and faculty, depending on how often they come to campus, are tested once or twice per week. This level of preventative, asymptomatic testing and prompt reception of test results is hard to find in the US. Not only is Conn able to provide such thorough testing and contact tracing due to its institutional wealth, but also because of its determination to put that wealth towards central planning––something the world’s richest government is unwilling to do. I spoke with Dean Cardwell on the measures Conn took over the summer as well as where we might be now had Conn not committed to central planning early on. Dean Cardwell, Senior Associate Dean of Student Life, worked with Dean Arcelus to set-up the testing center and oversees its day-to-day operations.
Speaking on preparation done over the summer, Dean Cardwell explained “the work we did was everything from deciding how to have 1000+ students move in and do so safely, [to] helping us understand how to house people and what was an appropriate room occupancy. In terms of testing specifically, we knew that testing needed to be the first stop…From there, really evaluating what are the risks in terms of where are the points of exposure. [We were] trying to think through…what were the different strategies that we could use to mitigate those risks, and testing is a huge component of that.”
When asked if Conn would have been able to contain the spread of Covid-19 without that centralized planning, Cardwell said, “I don’t know, I think probably not. Most of the individuals that have tested positive were asymptomatic, and so if you’re only doing symptomatic testing on a college campus I think the risk is increased for the spread on campus….We have seen more than once that the quarantine process has…been able to stop what could’ve been a much bigger spread, and I think if we were only testing once a week we wouldn’t—I think that would’ve been much more complicated.”
Although many might think that “numbers are just numbers,” how we present or contextualize them frames a problem and determines what solutions we might pursue. For this reason, coverage of Covid-19 cannot rely exclusively on national daily, or even total, infection numbers. Global comparative statistics and numbers that tangibly convey the proportional outlier that is the US are needed to continually remind us that so much of the death and illness from this pandemic could have been avoided.
What the examples here show is how crucial centralized planning and coordination is to stopping continued death and infection from this disease. As U.S. reporters rush to keep up with the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases, it is equally important that we step back to appreciate just how badly the US has mismanaged this virus. We cannot forget that. Our response could have been very different. As Ed Yong of The Atlantic argues in his August article, with climate change likely to increase the number of novel infectious diseases, it seems that more epidemics and pandemics are likely in the future. We cannot forget that this pandemic was in many ways preventable, because this is only the start of more pandemics like it.•
