Why isnt COVID-19 spread through the Third World, where conditions seem ideal for contagion?

Mohamed Ibrahim Bassyouni
2020 / 4 / 22

The Zero point of the Covid-19 pandemic was Wuhan, in Hubei Province, in China. Until serious efforts were made to contain it, it spread like wildfire through Hubei (Wuhan is a huge city there). As China is a major industrialized nation, with ties to countries around the world, anyone infected with the virus who then left Wuhan´-or-the surrounding Hubei Province, became the first carriers of the virus to other countries.
Those nations with the most ties to China were at greatest risk. Those nations with the largest centralized populations (biggest cities) were at greater risk. As the virus spread from country to country, those areas with the highest traffic with the outside world were the centers of infection for those areas.
In America, the areas most quickly and seriously affected were the ones with the highest traffic - in and out of the area - and especially the ones with the most visitors to and from China from before the lockdown. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco were easily the urban areas most quickly affected. Washington State had a disproportionate number of cases, probably because it has an unusually -dir-ect contact with China (The Northwest was a popular spot for Chinese emigres when Hong Kong was turned over from the British to the communist Chinese government).
In Florida, which has very little -dir-ect contact with China - particularly in comparison with the West Coast and New York. But Florida is also a high traffic area with the Northeast, with travelers to and from New York, New Jersey and Boston. Florida’s biggest areas for coronavirus are in South Florida (Miami/Dade) with Tampa and Orlando rising in cases because of ties to South Florida.
The more rural you are, the less contact you have with the outside world, and so the rate of contagion is lower. All it takes is contact with one person who has been infected, so there’s no completely safe place to be on this whole planet. But if you go by the numbers, you’re less statistically likely to catch it if you’re in a rural/low-traffic area.
If that’s the case in the U.S., it’s also the case in other countries. Right now, Europe and America are overtaking China as the centers of the pandemic. Economic development, with its traffic to and from China, has made the developed nations the first on the list of potential carriers. The less developed a nation is, the less traffic it has with the outside world, the more its circumstances act as a natural barrier to the virus’ transmission.
Mexico is not as poor a nation as many Americans think (It’s one of the most industrialized and developed nations in the world, with one of the highest GDPs) but you’re less likely to catch coronavirus in Mexico than in the U.S.´-or-Canada.
If you look at really isolated areas of the world, their numbers are really low, compared to Europe and America.




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