{"id":322305,"date":"2020-05-06T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=322305"},"modified":"2020-05-06T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T20:00:09","slug":"saipan-doing-well-with-covid-19-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/saipan-doing-well-with-covid-19-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Saipan doing well with COVID-19 infections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Compared to the rest of the world, Saipan and the CNMI are faring quite well.\u00a0 COVID-19 testing levels here are higher, while disease rates and death rates are lower than most other parts of the world.\u00a0 As I have\u00a0previously blogged, Saipan is especially vulnerable to\u00a0COVID-19 complications, as they occur at much higher rates in those with diabetes.\u00a0 Since\u00a0Saipan has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world, we need to be especially careful here.\u00a0 In the following paragraphs I will outline how the CNMI compares to other parts of the world in terms of COVID-19 testing rates, rates of disease, and of course death.
\n\u00a0
\nCOVID-19 testing<\/strong>
\nSo far the\u00a0CNMI has tested 1,480 people\u00a0for COVID-19 infection. Directly comparing this to other parts of the world can be difficult.\u00a0 Most studies will list findings in testing per million population.\u00a0 Maybe my epidemiology skills just aren\u2019t strong enough, but I have trouble picturing what a gathering of a million people would look like.\u00a0 I can, however, easily picture 1,000 people.\u00a0 Therefore, most of the numbers I discuss will be in cases per thousand population.\u00a0 As the estimate of our CNMI population is 56,682, doing the math tells us we have done 26 COVID tests for every thousand people living here.
\nMost countries have done far less than this.\u00a0 I will list a few below, again this per thousand people.
\n1. CNMI\t 26
\n2. Italy\t34
\n3. USA\t 21
\n4. Turkey\t12
\n5. South Korea\t12
\n6. India\t4
\n7. California\t1.9
\n8. Japan\t1.4
\n9. Philippines\t1.0<\/p>\n

Only a handful of countries have done more testing per capita than the CNMI. These include Iceland, Estonia, and Italy.<\/p>\n

Another interesting comparison is to other U.S. territories.\u00a0 Guam has done comparatively well, but lags behind the CNMI.\u00a0 In order of the number of tests per thousand population.
\n1. CNMI\t 26
\n2. Guam\t 19
\n3. US Virgin Islands\t10
\n4. American Samoa\t1
\n5. Puerto Rico\t 0.4<\/p>\n

The CNMI has done more COVID-19 testing per person than almost everywhere else in the world.\u00a0 Guam is not too far behind, but the CNMI has tested 26 times more than American Samoa, 13 times more than California, and 60 times more than Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

I consider the level of testing done in the CNMI thus far to be quite remarkable. We should all be very proud of our first responders, the leadership of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. as well as the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force.\u00a0 They had very limited resources to work with and clearly maximized them.\u00a0 This accomplishment is even more extraordinary when you consider that other parts of the world all had a significant head start. Our first COVID-19 case was announced on March 28.\u00a0 The U.S. as a whole had its first case in early January.\u00a0 Many, many other\u00a0countries had a very slow start\u00a0to their testing. Not the CNMI.\u00a0 It is also important to consider that the\u00a0Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam are much wealthier than the CNMI.
\n\u00a0
\nCOVID-19 prevalence<\/strong>
\nSo far\u00a014 people have been diagnosed\u00a0with COVID-19 in the CNMI.\u00a0 This is less than one person per thousand (0.25).\u00a0 About 1 of every 4,000 people in the CNMI has been diagnosed.\u00a0Most parts of the world are much worse than this,\u00a0here is a partial listing\u00a0of cases per thousand population.
\n1. CNMI\t 0.25
\n2. Spain\t 5.3
\n3. USA\t 3.7 \u00a0
\n4. Italy \t 3.5
\n5. Great Britain\t2.8
\n6. South Korea\t 0.21
\n7. Japan\t 0.12 \u00a0<\/p>\n

From the above you can see that most major countries in Europe as well as the United States have between 15 to 20 times more cases per thousand than the CNMI.\u00a0Among major countries, only South Korea (barely) and Japan have a lower prevalence than Saipan.<\/p>\n

Now a comparison to other U.S. territories: COVID-19 cases per thousand population.
\n1. CNMI\t 0.25
\n2. Puerto Rico\t 0.60
\n3. Virgin Islands. 0.62
\n4. Guam\t 0.89
\n5. American Samoa. No cases yet<\/p>\n

In other words, the other territories have 2.5 to 3.5 times more cases per thousand than us in the CNMI.
\n\u00a0
\nDeaths from COVID-19<\/strong>
\nSo far two people have died from COVID-19 infection in the CNMI.\u00a0 With so few cases, statistical analysis is difficult, and even one more case can dramatically change the numbers.\u00a0 I will list a few anyway.\u00a0 Two deaths in the CNMI is equivalent to 1 in 28,000 or 0.04. <\/p>\n

Because the numbers are so small I will use deaths per 100,00 for comparison purposes.\u00a0Below is a listing:\u00a0 Deaths per one hundred thousand population
\n1. CNMI\t 3.5
\n2. Guam\t 3.6
\n3. Spain\t 54
\n4. Italy\t 48
\n5. Great Britain. 43
\n6. United States. 21
\n7. South Korea\t 0.5
\n8. Japan\t 0.4<\/p>\n

Most countries have a death rate from COVID-19 between 7 and 17 times higher than the CNMI.\u00a0 Guam and Saipan are very similar to each other, while South Korea and Japan have extraordinarily low death rates compared to virtually anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Overall, these findings have been highly reassuring to me.\u00a0Of course great caution and care is still needed; things could easily get worse.\u00a0I had feared it would be far worse at this point.\u00a0 I will encourage my friends at CHCC and the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force to keep up the good work.\u00a0 What has been accomplished so far with testing is simply amazing.<\/p>\n

Don Hardt (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong>
\nDon Hardt, O.D., C.D.E., of Hardt Eye Clinic & Diabetes Education Center, is an eye doctor and Certified Diabetes Educator on Saipan. He writes a blog called\u00a0saipandiabetesblog.com, where this article was originally published. Contact him at hardteyeclinic.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compared to the rest of the world, Saipan and the CNMI are faring quite well.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":322001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2524],"class_list":["post-322305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-don-hardt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}