Now I'm kicking myself that I've neglected Haiti since the end of the cholera epidemic. Via govtech.com, a Miami Herald report by Jacqueline Charles: Why Has COVID Claimed Few Lives in Haiti Despite Lax Rules? Excerpt, but read the whole report:
(TNS) - In Haiti, they are acting like COVID-19 doesn't exist.
Mask-wearing is an exception and not the norm; bands are playing to sold-out crowds; and Kanaval, the three-day pre-Lenten debauchery-encouraging street party is back on for February.
This is not a case of a population simply in denial. In a country of roughly 11 million people, there have been an astoundingly low 234 confirmed deaths related to the novel coronavirus. Across the border in the neighboring Dominican Republic, with roughly the same population, the pandemic has killed almost ten times the number, 2,364. Jet off to Miami-Dade County, home to one of the larger Haitian communities in the United States, and the death toll is even higher: 4,002 in a population of 2.7 million.
What's going on? Nobody is sure.
"We don't have a large quantity of people who are in bad shape," said Dr. Sophia Cherestal Wooley, deputy medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in Port-au-Prince. "They don't get sick to the point that they need to be hospitalized and we don't have the same quantity of people who have died here like in the Dominican Republic.
"Sincerely, I don't have an explanation as to why," she said. "We cannot say that the virus isn't in circulation and I don't think Haiti has a different virus that's circulating. It's the same as the others because there have been no studies saying otherwise."
Shortly after the first imported case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Haiti on March 19, epidemiologists raised alarms. Taking into account Haiti's weak health system, crowded living conditions and the population's skepticism about the virus, they feared that the country, which has seen so much tragedy, would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 infections.
At best, there would be 2,000 deaths, the models predicted. At worst, around 20,000.
Even the Pan American Health Organization, citing a surge of Haitians crossing the border from the Dominican Republic to escape a spike there and the country's ongoing political and humanitarian crises, voiced concerns about a pending crisis.
But fears that the deadly pandemic could unleash civil unrest and an even deeper humanitarian crisis have so far not proven accurate.
"Today Haiti has been mildly affected compared to other countries in the region," Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, incident manager at the Pan American Health Organization, said. "But the collateral effects, the socioeconomics, health and nutritional are considerable."
Still, the low number of deaths is especially surprising because of the government's own chaotic response and lax enforcement of its own rules.
Ministry of Health surveillance data show that Haiti experienced a first peak at the end of May into early June, and hospitalizations, while rising at one point, never reached critical levels.
In late August, a month before the U.S. government handed over 37 ventilators to the country to respond to COVID-19, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières closed its COVID-19 treatment center after only three months of operation. In recent months, other units have also closed, and plans to turn local soccer stadiums into oversized hospitals, never materialized.
Though public health experts are relieved about the death toll, they also warn that other health indicators suggest the country is not out of the woods.
"What we have to remember is that we are confronting a deadly disease, a new virus that probably has not yet manifested itself fully," said Dr. Jean Hughes Henrys, a member of the government-backed scientific commission supporting the COVID-19 response. "We have to remain vigilant."
On Monday, Haiti reported a total of 9,588 confirmed cases since March. In comparison, the Dominican Republic has registered 155,000 infections.
