March 2020: Italy at the top for number of victims …
Well, as shown by the graph and the map that you will find by scrolling through the article, this indicator tells a story of a country, Italy, hit from behind by the virus and stunned, so much so that it stands out for weeks in first place in the international ranking of victims. in relation to the population. Later, however, the picture changes, and not a little, in favor of Italy.
Let’s take the terrible month of March 2020, which we all remember for the very hard lockdown that kept us locked up in the home for weeks: the virus sows death almost only in us. On March 23, Italy already had 100 deaths per million inhabitants (or 10 per 100 thousand), more than double that of Spain, almost 10 times the number of France. It is the period of pain but also of controversy for the delays in the imposition of the red zones, for the collapsing hospitals, for the coffins in the streets of Bergamo.
October 2021: Italy dropped beyond fifteenth place
However, if we look at the graph of these long 20 months to date, the evolution is impressive: Italy is now no longer at the top of the list. In Western Europe we have been overtaken by Belgium, in Central-Eastern Europe by almost all countries, from Hungary to Bosnia, from Romania to the Czech Republic.
If we cross the Atlantic, the comparison is equally favorable to Italy. From Peru – which holds the world record for victims, with an unbridgeable distance from the rest of the world – to Brazil, from Colombia to Argentina, all these countries have overtaken Italy since last autumn-winter. Our country now ranks between fifteenth and twentieth place in the world and almost every week it slips one place.
The Italy-United States confrontation
The case of the United States is interesting. After a brief overtaking on Italy between September and October 2020, the US returned to having a lower number of victims throughout the course of 2021 also thanks to an early vaccination campaign.