I want to know if coronaviruses are considered as fixed variable entered in every country, can level of resiliency of that country be determined by the number of infected and dead people? Furthermore, can this kind of assessment be reliable for other crises such as climate change and global warming-related disasters?
It depends on how you want to define and measure resilience.
If you regard this as a measure of how rigid and robust a system is then the total number of deaths in relation to infections might give you an indication; here, the level of the health system is very important.
If you regard resilience as the ability to bounce back, then the recovery after the first wave happening now should be looked at.
If you see resilience as the ability to learn and to adapt, then you should investigate how decision-makers prepare for the next wave or future pandemics.
Mojtaba - I would argue that it is too early to tell. The last 'pandemic' of this nature was the Spanish Flu. Society was far more different then - so there is no way of comparing resilience of countries today compared to back then. The questions are being answered as they emerege. For instance, Spain and Italy are reasonably similar European countries compared to Germany. Why such a stark difference? Also - there are many contexts to resilience i.e. pre-planning, intervention and post-evaluation for past and future events. Then there is personal/genetic resilience. We may, for instance, find that German people have a genetic resilience to this particular strain. I doubt it - but it could be the case. Even so - it would still only be one factor. All nations are made up of many different migrants etc and different genetic makeups.
I agree with Dean. It is too early to tell. this question could be quite interesting to investigate at a later stage.
currently, the reported prevalence is not a great measure as the testing rates vary highly between countries. and the mortality rates are based on the prevalence rates
Please check the following URL:
https://www.preventionweb.net/files/37916_disasterresiliencemeasurementsundpt.pdf
it varies from country to country, and the mortality is based on prevalence
Disaster resiliancy is multifactorial. Although there are relatively few Covid cases
in Saudi Arabia, the lock down has resulted in depletion of medications. There is no warfarin available. Antimicrobials are in very short supply. Shipping charges have increased significantly. The situation is likely to be similar in other countries.
If medications are depleted mortality from non-Covid disease may be increased.
We must urgently determine which medications are effective for this condition to avoid wastage.
coronavirus statistics should be considered besides some other factors such as the age pyramid of each country for determining the resiliency of each of which. considering this fact that the most vulnerable groups to be affected with this disease are senior citizens and etc. although one of the most important things that we should be careful about studying such a concept are statistical traps. for example, the number of tests and the targeted population of the tests can have too many effects on the statistics provided by each county authorities. also, in my opinion, a review of the definitions of resiliency can help us not to summarize this concept simply by the number of people killed in a catastrophe.
The country context are very different as the resilience capcity each country it is better to evaluate it from a hollistic point of view, absortion capacita, adaptation capacity and tranformatios capacity.
It depends on how you want to define and measure resilience.
If you regard this as a measure of how rigid and robust a system is then the total number of deaths in relation to infections might give you an indication; here, the level of the health system is very important.
If you regard resilience as the ability to bounce back, then the recovery after the first wave happening now should be looked at.
If you see resilience as the ability to learn and to adapt, then you should investigate how decision-makers prepare for the next wave or future pandemics.
I agree with Benni, it depends on the meaning of resilience... resilience for whom? Consequences in terms of fatalities and people infected depend on different levels of vulnerability (health system, housing conditions, demographic factors, density of population, morbility and maybe genetics of individuals, etc.) and exposure (type of job, socio-economic status, access to adequate information, etc.) of the society (these are indeed multifactorial), but most importantly, resilience seen as a process, would be more very much related to (lack of!) informed decision making from an integrated perspective...
Disaster resilience of a country depends on it's resources, self-sufficiency, and a Government that can act timely, and quickly with its people to contain or eliminate the disaster.
China, despite it's big population, is an example in the management of COVID-19 pandemic.
In other words, you are asking whether it is possible to predict countries' resilience to any global disaster from the results of any past global disasters. How could this result be useful? I think it is important to focus on the causes.
In my opinion, the specific scale and rate of development of the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic is determined by many factors. The number of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and seriously ill and died from the Covid-19 disease and also (about 90% of those who died) from comorbidities is not a good indicator of the level of social immunity in a specific community of a region, country or geographical region, climate zone, because the tests are carried out differently in different countries, with the use of different test quality, with different characteristics of potentially infected persons referred for tests, the diagnosis of death caused mainly by Covid-19 or by other comorbidities, under different standards established by law anti-pandemic security instruments and their level of compliance by citizens as part of pro-social awareness and intergenerational solidarity. There are too many variables that determine other conditions for the development of the pandemic in individual countries and their scale of differentiating influence is too large to allow the number of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and seriously ill and dying from Covid-19 disease to be considered an objective indicator determining the level of social resilience in a specific community. On the other hand, other cataclysms, such as climate cataclysms, which are a consequence of the ongoing process of climate change, including the global warming process, have fundamentally different sources and characteristics of determinants shaping the level of social security than the factors determining the development of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (Covid-19) and therefore, the possibility of an objective comparative analysis of these different disasters and risk factors is very limited. On the other hand, there may be a synergy of increasing pro-ecological awareness of citizens, social environmental (ecological) responsibility, which is a derivative of the increased risk of the emergence of further climatic, pandemic, natural, economic and other disasters. As a result, citizens' interest in a healthy lifestyle, healthy eating, e.g. based on food produced from agricultural products resulting from sustainable organic farming, etc. may increase. society. In this way, the synergy of general immunity of the organism and the level of social resistance of citizens to various unfavorable factors of the external environment, including viruses, bacteria, other microorganisms and other factors, such as climate changes and their derivatives in the form of various types of climatic and natural disasters, etc., can be realized. Best wishes,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
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