COVID-19 details from here to around the world

By GILLIAN SLADE on March 31, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

The following information does not include new case numbers for Monday.

The number of COVID-19 cases at home or around the world is only relevant if we look at it in relation to population and the number of tests.

There are about 660 cases of COVID-19 in Alberta and the Calgary zone has by far the highest number of cases with 408 even though the Calgary zone has marginally more population – 1,669,272, according to data supplied by Alberta Health Services.

The Edmonton zone has 149 cases and a population of 1,404,498.

The south zone, which includes Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, has a population of 306,577 and 12 cases of COVID-19. This means if you wanted to really compare the south zone to Calgary, you’d have to multiply 12 by 5.4 which is 65 cases because Calgary has 5.4 times the population that the south zone has.

The population in the north zone is 482,635 where there are 45 cases. In the central zone it is 479,435 and there are 46 cases.

You would also have to look at the number of tests done in the south zone compared to others. Of the 45,000 tests in Alberta only 2,282, or three per cent, have been done in the south zone so far.

Alberta has a population of about 4.2 million so only a small fraction of the total population has been tested so far. Until recently those tested were mainly returning travellers.

Across the world as you look at the total number of cases of COVID-19 you also need to consider the population in those countries.

The U.S. currently leads the world with a total number of COVID cases at roughly 144,000 for a population of 327.2 million according to the internet.

Italy is next with nearly 98,000 cases and a population of 60.48 million.

Spain has more than 85,000 cases and a population of 46.66 million.

China has about 82,198 cases and the biggest population of all at 1.386 billion.

Germany has nearly 64,000 cases and a population of 82.79 million.

Canada has 6,243 cases and a population of about 37.5 million.

Portugal has a similar number of cases to Canada, 6,408 but its population is 10.29 million.

It becomes more difficult to compare the number of tests carried out in each country because that information is not easily accessible. The criteria for determining who qualifies for a COVID-19 test always varies considerably from country to country.

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