COVID-19: Stupidity Kills

(Drivebycuriosity) - The world is still struggling with COVID-19. The global numbers of reported infections, hospitalizations & deaths are climbing steeply. But there are huge national differences. China, Taiwan, South Korea have very low numbers of new cases & deaths, conversely in the USA, Brazil and Mexico the pandemic seems to be out of control (worldometers).

It is interesting in this case that a new study links infectious diseases with low national average IQs : "Researchers in the US have noted areas of the world with the lowest average intelligence quotient (IQ) also tend to have the highest rates of infectious diseases" (medicalxpress).

Maybe it´s a matter of intelligence to deal with the COVID-19. People need to understand that the virus jumps from person top person, it needs an intact chain. These chains could be broken by strictly performing social distancing (at least 6 feet distance),  wearing masks & washing hands (to avoid transporting the virus on the face). It seems that many people don´t understand these mechanism or they don`t care. Many refuse wearing masks in public, they ignore social distancing rules and what about washing hands properly? There is even a term for them: Covidiots.

There are reports about violent anti-mask and anti-social-distancing demonstrations in Germany (bbc). The media also report about corona parties in the US (cnn). Fortunately in Manhattan, where I live, the majority wears masks in public which helped to reduce the corona numbers considerably. But there is still a stubborn crowd who ignore the pandemic and behave as there were no crisis. I also notice a lot blacks and latinos who enter shops, cafes, laundromats and other public places wearing no masks. Don`t they get what`s going on? It is no surprise that their communities have over average infections and death rates.

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Unfortunately in other US states the situation is worse and fewer people are wearing masks. The image above shows the chance that in five random encounters all five people are wearing masks  (nytimes). As you can see mask use is high in the Northeast and the West, and lower in the Plains and parts of the South. The Covidiots keep the pandemic sweltering like a huge forest fire. As a result the number of deaths in the US is still climbing steeply. Stupidity kills.