By Allan Wall, May 19, 2020
A look at the progress of the COVID-19 coronavirus in our own hemisphere is helpful when considering our own immigration policy.
The U.S. is part of the Western Hemisphere (pictured right), composed of North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, and some other nearby islands.
I wanted to look at the big picture, so on May 18th I consulted the stats at Worldometer, which are available here and updated daily.
With one and a half million cases (1,542,034) the United States has more cases than any other country in the world. The U.S. COVID-19 death count is 91,634. We have 4,640 cases per million and 276 deaths per million.
In the entire Western Hemisphere, there have been 2,276,284 cases of COVID-19.
Therefore, at 1,542,034 cases, the United States has more COVID-19 cases than all the other countries and territories of the Western Hemisphere put together (734,250).
As far as the death count goes, 127,750 persons have died of COVID-19 in the Western Hemisphere. That’s 91,634 in the United States and 36,116 in the entire rest of the hemisphere.
But it’s not just the raw numbers.
Proportionately, the U.S. has the highest rate of coronavirus cases per million (4,640) in the hemisphere.
In second place is the remote Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory way down in the South Atlantic near Argentina. The Falklands only has about 4,000 inhabitants, but since the virus somehow got down there, with 13 cases, that brought up their cases per million to 3750.
As far as deaths in proportion to the population, the U.S., with its 276 deaths per million, is in second place in the hemisphere.
In first place is Sint Maarten, a small Dutch territory in the Caribbean with a population of about 42,000. Somehow the virus got there, with 77 cases and 15 deaths, which gives the territory a 350 deaths per million rate, higher than that of the United States.
That means that any territory in the Western Hemisphere apart from Sint Maarten has a higher death rate per million than the United States.
Of course, you could get even more specific and study the cities and regions in each country where the virus is worse.
But looking at the big picture, the United States has more cases than all the other countries in this hemisphere put together.
Therefore, we shouldn’t be bringing in more immigrants, as a preventive health and humanitarian measure. It’s quite possible they would be at higher risk of contracting the virus than in their home country.
So why are we still bringing in temporary workers? Ask the Trump Administration.
It’s better both for our own workers and for foreigners that we don’t keep bringing them in.
The country in our hemisphere with the second-highest tally of coronavirus cases is Brazil, at a quarter million, with 16,622 deaths.
Other countries with high quantities of coronavirus cases are Peru (92,273), Canada (77,616), Mexico (51,294), Chile (48,337), Ecuador (33,182), Colombia (15,574) and the Dominican Republic (13,136).
That last example, the Dominican Republic, has a much higher quantity of cases than its neighbor Haiti (456) with which it shares an island.
As far as the three Central American countries called the Northern Triangle, which in recent years have collectively sent the biggest share of illegal aliens to the United States, their coronavirus cases are 2727 for Honduras, 2061 for Guatemala, and 1488 for El Salvador. Honduras, however, has a much higher death rate than Guatemala (146-37) although the total cases for each country are not as far apart.
You see this sort of thing when you look at coronavirus statistics, as there are many factors involved.
The remote and isolated South American country of Paraguay (population 7 and a quarter million) has kept its case count down, to 761 cases and 51 deaths. When the crisis started, the country had only one direct flight link with Europe, the Madrid-Asuncion flight.
Now, Paraguay’s case per million count (111) is lower than its neighbors Bolivia (351), Argentina (179) and Brazil (1,156).
Note that national governments are making their own decisions based on each country’s interests, not following orders from the “World Health Organization.”
And so should we.
Visit Allan’s website.
