Expert: fears of Belarus neighbors are not unfounded

Also, on May 1. Belarus was second only to Russia in the rate of increase in infections. In terms of morbidity per million inhabitants, Belarus is ranked 25 in Europe and, apart from small countries, the first in Europe in terms of increase in infections per million inhabitants.

Viktor Aršavskis, Ph.D. in Economics, Mathematics, New York University, Principal Investigator at the BEROC Center for Economic Research, spoke about this and many other things in an interview.

According to data from May 2, in Belarus – 15,828 people infected with COVID-19, deaths – 97. A week ago, on April 25. there were 9,590 infected and 67 deaths.

– Many are currently monitoring the epidemic in Belarus. He writes that our country is already exceeding the peak in Italy in terms of the number of new cases and is approaching the United States. What do you think about that? Is the Belarusian scenario really getting more threatening than the Italian one?

– Looking at which indicators we will focus on. According to statistics of new cases per million inhabitants in the country, yes, according to this indicator, Belarus has just overtaken the United States and has been constantly ahead of Italy for several days. According to [užsikrėtimų] Belarus is second only to Russia at the moment: 6.3 percent has been recorded in the last day. [susirgimų] just over seven percent increase in Russia.

– Neighboring countries and others fear that Belarus will become a vector of infection when European countries begin to ease quarantine and open borders …

– These fears, not without reason. Daily coronavirus cases show that everything has just started in Belarus, and in many other countries the peak is over. The number of cases has almost doubled in the past week. If this continues to happen, we could have around 50,000 people sick in mid-May.

– Does it make sense to compare the situation in Belarus with other countries?

– Comparisons make sense. We are more like Russia. However, looking at the trajectory of the spread of the virus (number of cases last week and number of previous cases), it is very similar in many countries. The differences are small. The larger deviations can be explained by restrictive measures.

– How similar are the situations in Russia and Belarus? Is it related to the omission of statistics, to the impossibility of collecting them, to people’s mistrust of official data, to the fear of officials by officials? At the moment, Belarus frustratingly jokes that the death limit has almost expired.

– Belarus and Russia are similar in many ways. Population density in the European part. In both countries, medicine is the inheritance of the USSR. The form of government is autocratic. Until very recently, there was practically no border. There have been attempts to synchronize many things at the state level, probably including the style of statistical data collection and processing.

– March 25 Belarus Health Minister Vladimir Karanik has denied the possibility of an “Italian” epidemic in Belarus. According to him, “in Italy”, several unfavorable factors coincided, which Belarus from the beginning tried to level off.

The minister then announced that he was the first in Italy to be infected by an older person who lived a socially active life. “He was admitted to a regular hospital, then he was found in a resuscitation with pneumonia, where he was only identified on the fifth or sixth day. At that time, quite a few older people and hospital staff were already infected. That is why the pandemic has spread uncontrollably. “

– It is known that the risk of dying from coronavirus increases with age, as well as with chronic diseases. Looking at the age distribution of the population, we see that there are significantly older diseases in Italy.

For example, almost 5 percent. The Italian population is between 70 and 74 years old. population in Russia and Belarus, less than 3%. That is why the probability of the simplest, the so-called Italian scenario is low.

Italians were the first to be beaten, they simply did not know what to do, resulting in overcrowded hospitals. At least we have information on how it happened to them, at least we can draw some conclusions. I think there will be fewer deaths with us.

– How reliable are the official data?

– We can only see the statistics [reikia tai daryti] exactly Each country has its own rules for collecting information, as well as its own testing procedures. In Germany, for example, mass tests were carried out. Sweden mainly inspects those who are already seriously ill. In Belarus and Russia, many of those already experiencing symptoms are examined daily.

The same is true for coronavirus mortality. Russia and Belarus are in a very high position compared to other countries: mortality in Russia is 1%, in Belarus even lower, currently only 0.63%.

– Can it be concluded that the number of deaths in Belarus does not correspond to reality, looking at the statistics in other countries, where there are many more reasons to trust the authorities that publish these statistics?

– In particular, statistics reflect the rules under which they are recorded. In some countries there is a rule to classify all deaths from the virus as victims of COVID-19, in other countries there is no such rule, so the statistics vary. The problem is that the information on the rules followed by the Belarusian Ministry of Health is not public.

– What publicly available data does not allow for more accurate assessments of the situation?

– First of all, I would like to draw attention to a project directed by Ny Time, missing coronavirus deaths.
They have compiled detailed historical statistics on deaths (for whatever reason) and compared them to the current situation, with how many more deaths there are currently. The difference is that there are deaths from coronavirus.

It is worth mentioning here that far from all “additional” deaths occurred directly from the coronavirus,
However, most are indirectly related to the virus.

For example, one person did not receive timely medical care due to overcrowded hospitals. There is another side to the coin: Probably due to the quarantine regime, car crash deaths in many countries are now much lower than before.

However, we see a significant increase in deaths in all regions compared to the historical average.

To properly understand the whole situation and draw some conclusions, objective numbers are needed:
1) details of deaths,
2) in filling the hospital,
3) about the number of ambulances in the city.
It is also very important to understand what is happening with medical personnel, as they are in the most dangerous area. At a time when we had 3,000 cases, the Ministry of Health reported that around 300 of them were doctors. Since then it has stopped publishing these statistics.

– With regard to Belarus, what data, which the state has but which are not publicly available, do not allow for a more accurate assessment of the situation in our country?

– Detailed data on mortality, weeks [duomenys] and several years [duomenys] regions.

– Are there statistics that show the effectiveness of quarantine?

– No, and it cannot be for objective reasons.

It is clear that any restriction reduces the number of contacts and stops the spread of the epidemic. But quarantine slows down the economy, people lose their jobs, wages, in extreme cases, they have nothing to buy food.

Obviously, you need to persuade people to give up unnecessary contacts. For example, we have completely moved our curriculum to distance learning. But I can’t keep the quarantine complete. In this case, we do not know the optimal solution.

I’ve recently seen a semi-joke of quarantine and coronaviruses, and economists will understand immediately. “I wonder who will kill more people: quarantine or viruses? If the quarantine is optimal, then it is the same.”

It is not an absolute quantity, but a marginal quantity. If we slightly increase the necessary isolation measures, we kill X number of people with economic losses, but we save Y number of people by reducing contacts. When there are no restrictive measures and we introduce them gradually, it is obvious that X is very small [skaičius]and Y is large. But by gradually introducing these measures, we increase X as the economy becomes more and more constrained, and we reduce Y. As soon as X and Y are equalized, that’s the optimal quarantine. By reducing or increasing it, we will kill more people for one reason than another.

Currently, it is not feasible to calculate the optimal level of quarantine, since neither the economic consequences nor the effect of quarantine on the spread of the epidemic can be predicted.

– The experts try to make a mathematical analysis of the situation and its development. One of them is here. In your opinion, can the country’s citizens and government focus on these models, plan their behavior, create plans?

– Now it is difficult to make plans, because the situation is not pleasant. The essence of the model is to predict how the lines will behave: 1) the number of people currently ill (green line), 2) in the case of so-called terminations (when a person recovers or dies, the purple line). As soon as these lines cross, we hope it will only improve in the future. At the moment, we see that it is still very far away.

If we assume that the lines will maintain the dynamics of the last days, it is possible to calculate how many days remain before their intersection.

But I am quite skeptical about the calculations of such models, because here, in addition to the future forecast error, there are also problems with the quality of the input data. For objective reasons, the number of people carrying the virus is much greater than the number of people who have been diagnosed with the virus.

A question for which we do not know the answer: have most of the unidentified carriers of the virus already become ill and feel well, or are most of them in hospitals with pneumonia without a correct diagnosis of COVID-19? If it is the first option, the green and purple lines are much closer to each other than what we see in the image. And if the second option, things are much worse.