So here in Korea I did some looking into Covid numbers, Korea is a densely populated country. For example I’m from North Carolina and that state has right under 10 million people, South Korea is a tad smaller then North Carolina but has just over 50 million in population. In the USA there are about 87 people per square mile, in South Korea there are 1,300 per square mile. So we are literally living on top of each other.
Here are the reported Covid death numbers:
South Korea: 2,173
USA: 622,321
If I give South Korea the same population as the USA then the covid numbers based on 332 million people would break down to the following:
South Korea 14,428
Which seems like MUCH more realistic numbers then 620 thousand dead in the USA.
Also have to remember, people are much more close here and live in big cities, while 99% of people do wear masks, there is no social distancing, there have been no mandatory lock downs, restaurants are all open and nobody wears a mask inside and they are packed, bars are packed, streets are packed. I could chalk this up to mask wearing, but where people would be most vulnerable sitting and eating in very confined spaces, nobody wears a mask.
The biggest effect on people is things the local government has done with masking on public transportation, but otherwise that is it really. There is a ton of contract tracing in business, but considering the low deaths, these don’t turn up much.
Also a side note, in 2019 in South Korea alone there were more than 14,000 suicides, this was before covid, for some reason I can’t find the sucide numbers for 2020…. Which I can only imagine got much worse.
Idk, something to think about.
A few things could factor into this also, in general Korean people are more healthy.
Maybe the fact that 99% of people wear masks? But considering I've been here since the outbreak, I never wear a mask except where impossible not to, I've never been sick. And we all in general know masks do next to nothing.
thought it was interesting though.