Coronavirus beats common sense: The mystery of more viral spread of disease in western nations like Italy and France compared to developing nations like India and Bangladesh
According to the latest statistics of the COVID-19 Outbreak Map, Italy has over 47,000 positive cases of Coronavirus disease and France has about 12,000. However, India has only 236 and Bangladesh has only 20! Mexico and South Africa have 164 and 202 respectively.
What does this mean? Do developed nations have more advanced techniques of better identifying this disease compared to developing nations? Maybe, but it could even be the case that those in western nations are visiting the doc at even the tiniest of symptom which could have been positively ignored in a normal environment (such as a random sneeze or a cough). Cough and cold are about as common in a normal environment as they're now, especially the isolated one-off cases that don't keep recurring.
The good old cure by placebo effect (having a reassured pat by the doc or just the smell of the capsule) can work in the opposite direction too: In a panicky environment such as the one we're living in right now, its quite possible that people get jumpy and alarmed at the slightest discomfort in their bodies.
If one starts thinking along these lines, getting a self-prophesied fever in a short period of time doesn't sound like a very big deal. Add to it some slight wiggle room for test results by the docs along with the pressure on them to somehow "cure" the patient, and a "positive identification" also doesn't sound like a big deal, especially given the environment.
Could it be the case that this is just another hype like SARS, MERS and H1N1 (Swine Flu) before? I really hope that's the case and really want to believe that to be the case. And if more and more people start believing that to be true, don't you think a placebo effect can be created which will automatically eradicate the disease by self-prophesying even if that belief wasn't true in the first place? Just some food for thought!
What does this mean? Do developed nations have more advanced techniques of better identifying this disease compared to developing nations? Maybe, but it could even be the case that those in western nations are visiting the doc at even the tiniest of symptom which could have been positively ignored in a normal environment (such as a random sneeze or a cough). Cough and cold are about as common in a normal environment as they're now, especially the isolated one-off cases that don't keep recurring.
The good old cure by placebo effect (having a reassured pat by the doc or just the smell of the capsule) can work in the opposite direction too: In a panicky environment such as the one we're living in right now, its quite possible that people get jumpy and alarmed at the slightest discomfort in their bodies.
If one starts thinking along these lines, getting a self-prophesied fever in a short period of time doesn't sound like a very big deal. Add to it some slight wiggle room for test results by the docs along with the pressure on them to somehow "cure" the patient, and a "positive identification" also doesn't sound like a big deal, especially given the environment.
Could it be the case that this is just another hype like SARS, MERS and H1N1 (Swine Flu) before? I really hope that's the case and really want to believe that to be the case. And if more and more people start believing that to be true, don't you think a placebo effect can be created which will automatically eradicate the disease by self-prophesying even if that belief wasn't true in the first place? Just some food for thought!
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