Sorting is useful when working with data. It could reveal trends. I used to do this when I was in grade school. I was going through a World Atlas at one time and was ranking countries according to area and population. I even collected all the mountains with their respective altitude. Of course, at that time, all I knew was whether numbers were larger or smaller. All those digits did not mean so much except that some were large, and some were small. With the data on COVID-19, one cannot escape the fact that each number is a person. And in this case, some of these numbers are telling us a very sad story. Still, there are trends and from these, we may still learn a thing or two.
The following tables are obtained from data provided by
Worldometer.
The obvious ranking is by number of cases. The United States of America is on top.
| Country |
Cases |
| USA |
356,414 |
| Spain |
135,032 |
| Italy |
132,547 |
| Germany |
101,558 |
| France |
98,010 |
| China |
81,708 |
| Iran |
60,500 |
| UK |
51,608 |
| Turkey |
30,217 |
| Switzerland |
21,652 |
| Belgium |
20,814 |
| Netherlands |
18,803 |
| Canada |
16,498 |
| Austria |
12,293 |
| Portugal |
11,730 |
| Brazil |
11,721 |
| S.
Korea |
10,284 |
| Israel |
8,904 |
| Sweden |
7,206 |
| Russia |
6,343 |
Except for Brazil, all of the top 20 countries lie north of the Tropic of Cancer. These countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, which currently is in the Winter/Spring season.
We can also rank the countries according to the number of deaths.
| Country |
Deaths |
| Italy |
16,523 |
| Spain |
13,169 |
| USA |
10,490 |
| France |
8,911 |
| UK |
5,373 |
| Iran |
3,739 |
| China |
3,331 |
| Netherlands |
1,867 |
| Germany |
1,662 |
| Belgium |
1,632 |
| Switzerland |
762 |
| Turkey |
649 |
| Brazil |
516 |
| Sweden |
477 |
| Canada |
321 |
| Portugal |
311 |
| Austria |
220 |
| Indonesia |
209 |
| Ecuador |
191 |
| Denmark |
187 |
In this top 20 list, we are now seeing countries near the equator: Brazil, Indonesia and Ecuador. Still, the list is dominated by countries in the northern temperate zone, and these countries generally have a better health infrastructure than the countries near the equator. There is a question on how reliable the total number of cases and deaths are. With cases, there may not be enough testing to find the actual number of positive cases. And with deaths, there is a significant lag between initial infection and death since the virus has a relatively long period of incubation. Thus, a better measure maybe the number of serious or critical cases. Here is the top twenty countries.
| USA |
8,876 |
| France |
7,072 |
| Spain |
6,931 |
| Iran |
4,083 |
| Germany |
3,936 |
| Italy |
3,898 |
| UK |
1,559 |
| Turkey |
1,415 |
| Netherlands |
1,409 |
| Belgium |
1,257 |
| Sweden |
590 |
| Canada |
426 |
| Switzerland |
391 |
| Chile |
327 |
| Brazil |
296 |
| Mexico |
293 |
| Portugal |
270 |
| China |
265 |
| Austria |
250 |
| Romania |
179 |
There is of course positive numbers in any table. The following are the number of recoveries.
| China |
77,078 |
| Spain |
40,437 |
| Germany |
28,700 |
| Iran |
24,236 |
| Italy |
22,837 |
| USA |
19,247 |
| France |
17,250 |
| Switzerland |
8,056 |
| S.
Korea |
6,598 |
| Belgium |
3,986 |
| Austria |
3,463 |
| Canada |
3,439 |
| Australia |
2,432 |
| Denmark |
1,378 |
| Turkey |
1,326 |
| Malaysia |
1,241 |
| Peru |
997 |
| Thailand |
793 |
| Chile |
728 |
| Mexico |
633 |
A significant number of people are indeed recovering.
The above three lists, however, are both absolute numbers. To gain further insight, one should really consider the population in each country to have a better handle of the density of these cases and deaths. Here is the list for number of cases per million people.
| Country | Total Cases/1M pop |
| | Vatican City |
8,739 |
| San Marino | 7,839 |
| Andorra | 6,484 |
| Iceland | 4,577 |
| Luxembourg | 4,542 |
| Faeroe Islands | 3,745 |
| Gibraltar | 3,235 |
| Spain | 2,888 |
| Switzerland | 2,502 |
| Italy | 2,192 |
| Liechtenstein | 2,020 |
| Monaco | 1,962 |
| Channel Islands | 1,858 |
| Belgium | 1,796 |
| Isle of Man | 1,635 |
| France | 1,502 |
| Austria | 1,365 |
| Germany | 1,212 |
| Montserrat | 1,202 |
| Portugal | 1,150
|
It does not bode well that the United States of America is not in the above list although it has the highest number of confirmed cases. The question of adequate testing is also important so here is a table that shows the top 20 countries in testing.
| Country |
Cases |
Total Cases/1M pop |
Total Tests/1M pop |
| Faeroe
Islands |
183 |
3,745 |
100,976 |
| Iceland |
1,562 |
4,577 |
81,701 |
| Gibraltar |
109 |
3,235 |
41,168 |
| Luxembourg |
2,843 |
4,542 |
38,805 |
| Bahrain |
756 |
444 |
28,023 |
| Malta |
241 |
546 |
24,738 |
| Liechtenstein |
77 |
2,020 |
23,605 |
| UAE |
2,076 |
210 |
22,244 |
| Norway |
5,763 |
1,063 |
20,530 |
| Isle
of Man |
139 |
1,635 |
19,263 |
| Brunei |
135 |
309 |
18,883 |
| Switzerland |
21,652 |
2,502 |
18,776 |
| San
Marino |
266 |
7,839 |
17,270 |
| Estonia |
1,108 |
835 |
16,484 |
| Slovenia |
1,021 |
491 |
13,590 |
| Qatar |
1,832 |
636 |
13,227 |
| Hong
Kong |
915 |
122 |
12,900 |
| Israel |
8,904 |
1,029 |
12,677 |
| Greenland |
11 |
194 |
12,648 |
| Austria |
12,293 |
1,365 |
12,357 |
Faeroe Islands seems to have done the most extensive testing. It has tested 10 percent of its population. With this extensive testing, the infection rate in Faeroe Islands stands at 0.37 percent. The highest infection rate in this table of countries that have done testing on a significant fraction of its population is San Marino (which is near Italy) and its infection rate is 0.78 percent. We know that in the Diamond Princess cruise ship, a 20 percent infection was observed so could it be that the ceiling in open land is only 1 percent? Possibly.
After we get through these times, there will be lots of data to study. We could certainly learn a lesson or two from these numbers.
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