Corona Daily 467: Pentagon Orders and Japanese Hotels

One way to check if Covid-19 death numbers are under-reported is to ask how many people would have died if there was no virus. Actuarial scientists specialize in death projections, however morbid that may sound. Deaths may have seasonal variations and trends, but from year to year, the numbers are predictable.

Last month, if 6000 people were expected to die in your city, but 10,000 died, it is fair to attribute the number of excess deaths to the virus. If your government is reporting 2000 covid-19 deaths, they are probably underreporting by 50%. In its inimitable style, The Economist tracks these numbers for eleven regions on a daily basis.

Jakarta leads in the suppression of numbers. Its cemetery department records 2,800 burials a month. In March, it reported 4,400, an excess of 1,600. Jakarta’s official covid-19 toll is 84, only 5%. Turkey’s Erdogan assures the nation everything is fine, and describes how he eats a spoonful of mulberry molasses every morning to boost his immunity. Istanbul’s figures cover only 45% of the excess deaths.

Some argue that most Covid-19 victims, due to age or condition, would have died in the near future anyway. May not be true. One study in Italy calculated that among the victims men lost 14 years of life, and women 12 years (the YLL concept).

*****

Several other ways of cross-checking. One is to look at body bags. Pentagon has a specified standard: green nylon 94-inch by 38-inch bags. It maintains a rolling stock of 50,000 to wrap up the various people American soldiers kill across the world. Pentagon has now ordered 100,000 additional body bags for civilian use.

Mopec is the leading American company dealing with autopsy and pathology supplies. They confirm stocks of body bags are depleted. Despite adding more employees and multiple shifts, body bag manufactures in the USA are reporting backlogs of six months or longer. They are rapidly running out of fabric and zippers. Canada’s Ministry of Health has asked funeral homes to use ‘a leak-proof body bag’ marked with ‘infectious risk-handle with care’ in big letters.

*****

Japan is a country of the old; it sells far more adult diapers than baby diapers. Naturally, death is a big business in Japan. The Japanese funeral industry was booming even before the virus. They have drive-through funerals, and also corpse hotels (Itai Hoteru). With long queues for cremations, the dead Japanese rest in well-equipped hotel rooms, sometimes for days, before their turn comes.

Now those calculations are disrupted, because of the risk of infection. A well-known Japanese comedian Ken Shimura, 70, died of Covid-19. His brother said his body went straight to the crematorium, without the family getting a chance to say goodbye.

Funeral directors in Japan are toying with ideas such as live-streaming funerals using GoPro cameras, and cashless payments PayPay.

*****

Body bags, coffins, cemeteries give clues as to how lethal this virus is. In India, where Hindus are cremated, one has to look for other clues. In rural India, a farmer can be cremated in his field, and his death may not be recorded anywhere.

Ravi