Coronavirus and the Politics Behind It

By Dr. Carol Swain |

On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the human coronavirus a pandemic, which is defined as a global outbreak of a disease. The existence of the coronavirus has created a worldwide panic. Among the things I don’t understand: why this virus, compared with others before it, warrants shutting down the United States and killing its economy. Our nation survived 9/11, Swine Flu, and H1N1. But coronavirus (COVID-19), together with the politics behind it, threatens to annihilate us.

A Look at the Statistics

When we look at the coronavirus numbers objectively, we might ask if the actual number of deaths and infections so far justify the measures taken around the world to contain the virus. Globally, the world has a population of 7.8 billion people. As of March 31, Worldometer, which is tracking the disease, reported 803,547 infections and 39,045 deaths.

New York City (NYC), the epicenter of the disease in the United States, leads the news coverage because it has had the highest number of deaths. As of March 30, 1,200 were dead in New York State, 914 in NYC. There were 66,500 infections statewide, with 36,221 (more than half) of those in NYC. The population of New York City is 8.6 million people; for all of New York State it is 19.5 million. So, while NYC has 44% of its state’s population, it has 54.5% of the state’s infected residents.

The United States has 327 million people. As of March 31, there were 164,785 coronavirus infections ranging in severity, with 3,073 deaths. A significant portion of those infections and deaths involved New York residents.