Where the death grip of Covid-19 slipped (brief)
In 2020, the global mortality rate will rise, but the rural mortality rate in Bangladesh will fall
Geochemist Lex Van Jean Work at the intersection of public health and environmental risks.his Natural Arsenic Pollution Research For more than 20 years, groundwater pollution has reminded the international community of this potential danger.
Van Geen, Columbia University Lamont-Dougherty Earth Observatory, Is working with economists to continue this work in Bangladesh in early 2020 Prabat Barnwal Michigan State University. The study aims to compare the effectiveness of various ways of presenting arsenic test results to residents in order to reduce their exposure.Beginning in January 2020, Van Geen and Innovation in Poverty Alleviation Action in Bangladesh, 16,054 households in 135 rural areas were surveyed.
On March 23, when Bangladesh entered a pandemic lockdown, the team had to suspend the site visit. But the large amount of demographic information that has been collected gave Van Geen and his colleagues an idea. Instead of studying arsenic, they decided to use the data to conduct a detailed study of the COVID-19 mortality rate in the same 135 villages.
It is not clear why the overall mortality rate in rural Bangladesh decreased at the beginning of the pandemic, even though the urban death toll increased. In 2016, villagers on an island in the Jamuna River welcomed tourists here. (Kevin Krajic/Earth Institute)
Van Geen and his colleagues wanted to know whether the relatively low number of COVID-19 deaths officially reported in rural Bangladesh in 2020 might be the result of a large-scale underestimation. To find out, his remote work team called each family and family and asked a series of survey questions to let them know whether and how the pandemic affected these families. In order to contact so many households, the survey team ran the equivalent of a call center with more than 50 investigators.
What did they find like Just reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA Internet Open, Surprisingly.
“We expect the COVID death rate to increase substantially, as we have learned [from reports from the rest of the world]For example, the death rate in the United States has risen by 20% in 2020, which is huge,” Van Geen said.
That is not what they found. In contrast, of the 11,256 households they could reach, 276 people died between February and the end of October 2020—slightly lower than the 289 deaths reported in these villages in the same month before the 2019 pandemic.
From January 2020 to October 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases (top) and deaths (bottom) in Bangladesh. During this period, the country recorded approximately 1.6 million cases and 28,000 deaths. Unlike many other countries, the number of deaths in 2020 is relatively small, and the cause is unknown. (Source: World Health Organization)
The study concluded: “For reasons worthy of further study, the impact of COVID-19 on rural mortality in Bangladesh in 2020 does not seem to be close to the pandemic in many other countries.” In fact, according to separate data from the Bangladesh government, The death rate has dropped slightly, although the death rate in Bangladesh’s cities has soared by about 10%.
Jeffrey Saman, Professor of Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Head of Department of Environmental Health Sciences Climate and Health Plan In the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, he studies the survival, spread, and ecology of infectious sources. He said that Van Geen’s research has important lessons for the spread of COVID and invited more research.
“The idea that a certain area of Bangladesh will not explode in 2020 is not just the jurisdiction of Bangladesh. There are other places that have managed to limit this,” he said. Shaman pointed out that Vietnam, a country of 98 million people, has only reported 35 COVID deaths and fewer than 3,000 cases in 2020.
“The real question is, what did they do right? Are they lucky? From a public health perspective, these are things you want to know to tell what to do next,” Saman said. “Why this area [of Bangladesh] During this time they survived so much that they even got the benefit of lowering the mortality rate? “
“It’s not that people didn’t die from COVID. According to anecdotal reports, the death rate in rural Bangladesh has increased in 2021,” Van Geen said. “Maybe the Delta variant spreads more in rural areas in the second year,” he said. “[We] They worry that there may be a lot of underreporting in 2020. If there is an underreport, it is not from the countryside, because we have the data. “
Saman said these data provide an opportunity for further research, especially if the Delta variant does cause an increase in COVID mortality in the region. Saman said: “It seems that either they can’t maintain the level of control in 2020, or Delta is too aggressive to stop it.”
