One issue that has been plaguing the world right now is the lack of testing done to verify the number of infected individuals with coronavirus. Although the US seemed to have gotten off to a slow start, they now or ramping up testing big-time.
But some other countries are severely lagging behind and disparities are being created between what’s really going on and what is being reported.
Brazil is a prime example.
According to Reuters, “Brazil likely has 12 times more cases of the new coronavirus than are being officially reported by the government.”
To arrive at this figure, researchers at Brazilian universities analyzed the ratio of cases resulting in death through April 10.
They compared the data to expected death rates from the World Health Organization and found a much higher death rate than expected. This figure, they believe, indicates that there are many more cases of coronavirus than are being counted. In fact, they estimate that only 8% of cases are being officially reported.
According to the Center for Health Operations and Intelligence, the government has focused mostly on only testing serious cases instead of suspected cases and there have also been issues with getting test results and just distributing tests in general.
The number of confirmed cases is 23,430, according to health ministry data, but as of last Thursday, Brazil had around 127,000 suspected cases. So we are talking about an enormous disparity.
The Center for Health Operations and Intelligence stated, “The high degree of under-notification could give a false impression about control of the disease, and consequently, could lead to a decline in containment measures.”
For those travelers who plan on being among the first to get back out and start traveling again, these type of reports should be good reminders that some countries may be worse off than they appear on paper.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
