Only New Zealand and Malaysia still publishing Covid stats in 2024 so far

I did a bit of delving on Wikipedia yesterday evening out of curiosity concerning the general Covid situation of late and found that the only 2 countries in the world still publishing their Covid stats (on a weekly basis) so far during 2024 are New Zealand and Malaysia, and for better or worse, it seems that the rest of the world has now essentially disowned the Covid pandemic.

I wonder if Covid outside of those 2 countries is now simply being glossed over or does it now finally pale into relative insignificance for the vast majority?

What does anyone on here think?

The UK still publishes COVID stats: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/

I'm not sure how accurately they reflect the number of infections. Most just ride through it like a flu and don't test.

The also show influenza, but interestingly they don't show the number of deaths from that.

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Originally Posted by WiredIncorrectly

The UK still publishes COVID stats: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/

I'm not sure how accurately they reflect the number of infections. Most just ride through it like a flu and don't test.

The also show influenza, but interestingly they don't show the number of deaths from that.

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TBH, I don't think most people really seem to even care anymore.

But surely if another variant of Covid (heaven forbid) suddenly emerged in due course, then it probably would be a major news story once again.

And then if that hypothetical 'new' variant turned out to be no worse than existing ones, the media would no doubt drop the subject like a hot potato once again, similar to when there was a brief scare about yet another Omicron sub-variant last August-September, then quickly forgotten about afterwards after it proved to be no more harmful than then-existing ones.

Plus regarding the number of deaths for influenza not being covered by that dashboard site you have linked, it seems that hardly anyone has ever given as much as a flying fig about those, but always made a song and danced over Covid-related deaths.

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Originally Posted by Lencoboy

TBH, I don't think most people really seem to even care anymore.

But surely if another variant of Covid (heaven forbid) suddenly emerged in due course, then it probably would be a major news story once again.

And then if that hypothetical 'new' variant turned out to be no worse than existing ones, the media would no doubt drop the subject like a hot potato once again, similar to when there was a brief scare about yet another Omicron sub-variant last August-September, then quickly forgotten about afterwards after it proved to be no more harmful than then-existing ones.

Plus regarding the number of deaths for influenza not being covered by that dashboard site you have linked, it seems that hardly anyone has ever given as much as a flying fig about those, but always made a song and danced over Covid-related deaths.

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Some are suggesting it will become a problem again: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...vallance-covid

Looking at the UK stats it still seems quite problematic.

The decision not make a song and dance over COVID is probably to "keep calm and carry on". You're right, people don't care anymore. I don't know if that's a good, or bad, thing.

It's interested to see where it goes. We know it has the ability to mutate into a bad strain, when or if that happens is yet to be seen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WiredIncorrectly

Some are suggesting it will become a problem again: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...vallance-covid

Looking at the UK stats it still seems quite problematic.

The decision not make a song and dance over COVID is probably to "keep calm and carry on". You're right, people don't care anymore. I don't know if that's a good, or bad, thing.

It's interested to see where it goes. We know it has the ability to mutate into a bad strain, when or if that happens is yet to be seen.

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BIB 1: I suppose the same could also apply to the various other 'viruses' that have abounded over the past 20-odd years or so, e.g, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika, M-Pox, etc, let alone Covid. I guess Sir Pat could technically apply the same logic to the threat of terrorism as well, which of course still remains (and probably always will) despite seemingly receiving less media attention over the past 5 years or so.

Of course we still have the likes of ordinary 'flus' and Norovirus to contend with pretty much every year anyway, plus there's always the ever-present chance they could mutate into particularly bad strains at any time. And last winter we had that really bad flu-like virus that lasted for weeks with some people (including Whooping Cough), and that particularly floored both myself and my dad for about 3 weeks or so; much worse than my own personal 'known' bout of Covid in February 2022.

I don't personally think that Swine Flu ever actually went away after early 2010; the media and the authorities just stopped making a big issue of it and basically moved on to the next big 'scares' after that date, just like with Covid more recently.

BIB 2: I think we're basically damned if we do make a song and dance over all things Covid (excessive paranoia), and damned if we don't (not taking the issue seriously enough if and when necessary).

But there's the ever-present risk of plenty of other daily 'hazards' and potential untoward events that most of us don't usually tend to give as much as a second thought to, such as car crashes/getting run over, getting electrocuted, attacked by stray animals, crushed by toppling trees, etc, that are probably just as (if not more) likely to happen to us as catching bad Covid (or whatever other 'virus').

In the context of the 'keep calm and carry on' mantra, I agree that avoiding most issues forever more can often be more detrimental in the long run, unless it's something extremely serious that truly warrants it, of course (e.g, earlier Covids, especially pre-vaccines).