Socialist States Succeed Against COVID Where Western Capitalist States Have Failed
Tags: Coronavirus, Covid 19, Socialism, China, Vietnam

Note: all COVID numbers in this article, with the exception of numbers for Laos and North Korea, come from the Mortality Analyses section of the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The numbers were retrieved on November 20.

For a more in-depth analysis of the COVID-19 response in Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, and Kerala, the article “CoronaShock and Socialism” by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is a great resource.

Socialist States Succeed Against COVID Where Western Capitalist States Have Failed

It is clearly possible for western capitalist states to protect their people from COVID-19. In practice they have failed completely to do so, with a few notable exceptions: western liberals seem particularly enamored with New Zealand. The rate of deaths due to COVID-19 per one hundred thousand people (deaths/100K) in New Zealand is 0.51, which places it the 17th lowest in the world according to Johns Hopkins (at least amongst the nations listed; there are some notable exceptions, as we will see).

No doubt part of the reason for western liberals’ love affair with New Zealand’s COVID-19 response is that New Zealand, in addition to being a capitalist state and a “liberal democracy,” is a “western” state, a largely white state, and a settler state. Western liberals believe that the strategies implemented in New Zealand could work in other western nations; white liberal pundits tend to be more skeptical that the west could replicate the strategies of Asian nations, even those allied to the United States, like South Korea and Japan. (This is despite the fact that many of the successful COVID-19 containment strategies used in Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand are in fact the same; western journalism is inherently racist and orientalist).

But New Zealand is clearly the exception; the reality is that the vast majority of western capitalist nations have utterly failed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic; there have been notable successes among non-western capitalist states, and these successes should be acknowledged, but many non-western capitalist states have struggled to contain the virus as well. On the other hand, socialist states have had incredible success in containing the spread of the virus, limiting the numbers of illnesses and deaths, and mitigating the economic disruption that has been caused by the pandemic.

When the evidence is looked at with clear eyes, the inescapable conclusion is that socialism is a superior system for responding to crises and protecting human life. This is not to say that it is impossible for capitalist states to respond effectively to pandemics or to other crises; but there is a clear and consistent trend of capitalists states failing to do so, and there is a clear and consistent trend of socialist states succeeding. To deny this trend is to refuse to see how the world really works, and to doom ourselves to repeating these same failures again and again, at the cost of massive human suffering.

What Is A Socialist State?

To compare the pandemic responses of capitalist and socialist states, we must have an agreement on which states in the world are socialist.

To begin our analysis we will focus on those states which identify themselves as socialist. Here we hope to avoid our own biases and assumptions. There are plenty in the west, including those who call themselves “leftists”, “socialists”, or “communists”, who will reject the socialist character of these states. We are uninterested in their opinions.

There are, to my knowledge, five states in the world that both explicitly identify themselves as socialist and are governed by an explicitly communist party: they are, in order of population, the People’s Republic of China (“China”), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (“Vietnam”), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK” or “North Korea”), the Republic of Cuba (“Cuba”), and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (“Laos”). We believe these five states will provide the strongest starting point for our analysis.

All of these nations have had incredible success against COVID-19. Laos and North Korea both report zero deaths — North Korea in fact reports no cases at all (interestingly, data for these nations does not seem to be listed in the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center). Vietnam’s swift and effective response has drawn widespread praise: Vietnam currently has 35 deaths, which equates to 0.04 deaths/100K; according to Johns Hopkins, this is the third-lowest rate in the world. China, which is also the first nation to have identified the virus, and so had to respond quickly and decisively to a totally new disease, has a deaths/100K rate of 0.34, which ranks eighth lowest, significantly below New Zealand. Cuba has been hardest hit, with a deaths/100K rate of 1.16, but this is still incredibly impressive, especially when one considers the decades of economic warfare that Cuba has faced from the United States; ongoing economic embargoes make it very difficult for Cuba to import necessary medical equipment, medicines, and personal protective equipment.

Let us compare each of these nations to a capitalist nation of similar population size, while trying our best to account for geography.

China, the world’s most populous nation, has a total of 91,935 confirmed cases and 4,742 deaths. Once again, we must remember that China had to face the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan without any clear idea of what this disease was or how it functioned. In fact, the early scientific analysis of the disease by Chinese public health officials has proved invaluable for the rest of the world: our ability to test for the virus, for example, comes from the successful sequencing of the virus’s unique genome, which Chinese scientists accomplished incredibly quickly.

India, the world’s next largest nation, has over 9 million confirmed cases, and 132,162 deaths. This is 97 times as many cases and 27 times as many deaths (rounding down). In the United States, the world’s third-largest nation, the picture is even starker: over 11.5 million confirmed cases, and 252,535 deaths. The scale of this contrast can’t be overplayed: China has over 4 times as many people as the United States, and yet the United States has nearly 100 times as many cases and over 50 times as many deaths. The United States is currently experiencing a massive surge in cases, while the virus in China has been successfully contained for months; this discrepancy will only grow larger.

Vietnam is the world’s 15th most populous nation, with over 95 million people; it has 1,304 cases and 35 deaths. Egypt is the world’s 14th most populous nation, with over 38 million people; it has 111,955 cases and 6,508 deaths. This means Egypt has had around 85 times more cases than Vietnam, and over 185 times more deaths. To be fair to Egypt, almost every nation would look poorly when compared to Vietnam’s incredible response; the contrast is actually greater between the US and China, since Egypt and Vietnam have similar population sizes.

North Korea, again, claims zero cases and zero deaths (we will examine the validity of these claims shortly). Perhaps the most intuitive comparison to make would be with South Korea, and here we must give credit where it is due: the South Korean government’s response has been widely praised and has been very effective. With 30,017 confirmed cases and 501 deaths in a population of 51.64 million, South Korea has a deaths/100K rate of 0.97; this is a higher rate than Vietnam, China, or New Zealand, but is actually slightly less than Cuba.

Cuba is an island nation of about 11 million people; it has 7,725 confirmed cases and 131 deaths. We suspect that island nations have an advantage in containing pandemics; this would seem to be a significant reason for New Zealand’s success as well. However, the Republic of Ireland, also an island nation, and with only about 5 million people, has had 69,473 cases and 2,010 deaths. So, although Ireland has less than half as many people as Cuba, it has had around 9 times as many cases, and around 15 times as many deaths. Japan, also an island nation, has far more people than Cuba, and is largely considered to have responded to the pandemic quite well, but has a slightly higher deaths/100K rate than Cuba (1.52 vs 1.16).

Cuba’s response, then, is certainly not the greatest in the world, and it has been outperformed by some capitalist nations (notably New Zealand and South Korea), but it has still managed a very effective response and, given Cuba’s relative wealth, it compares favorably to other island nations. Again, Cuba has slightly outperformed Japan, and greatly outperformed Ireland, even though it has far less relative wealth than either of those nations: as of 2018, Cuba’s nominal per capita GDP was $8,822, Japan’s was $40,247, and Ireland’s was $78,661. (Here we must acknowledge that Ireland’s response has been significantly hampered by the fact that the UK retains sovereignty over Northern Ireland; this means Ireland has been unable to respond on an island-wide basis, and the Irish government does not have total control over movement to and from the island. Some commentators would also argue that Ireland’s per capita GDP is misleadingly high, since it functions as a kind of de facto tax haven for certain multinational corporations, but this is a different story altogether).

Laos has a population of about 7 million. Its COVID numbers are not listed by Johns Hopkins, but as of November 20 it reports only 24 cases and 0 deaths. Similar to Vietnam, this remarkable response would put almost any other nation to shame. We can compare it to Paraguay, also a nation of about 7 million, which has had 74,495 confirmed cases and 1,636 deaths. This gives us the rather absurd statistic that Paraguay has had over 3,000 times as many cases as Laos, a number that should not be taken as a criticism of Paraguay but should simply highlight Laos’ truly incredible response.

Can We Trust The Numbers?

When the impressive results of these socialist states are mentioned, the instinctive response from western conservatives and liberals alike is that we “can’t trust” the numbers, because they come from communist governments.

In the case of China such claims are patently absurd. China is a massive nation, and many westerns live and work there. Despite hysteric claims to the contrary, Chinese people have access to the internet and to social media; yes, there is restriction and censorship of western social media websites, but many Chinese people get around this by using VPNs. There are plenty of western media organizations reporting on the ground from China. Although some media organizations have flirted with insane conspiracy theories, there has been no meaningful evidence whatsoever that the number of cases and deaths in China is higher than has been reported. In fact, western media organizations have often reported directly on China’s incredibly effective preventive measures: on multiple occasions, when a few cases of COVID-19 were detected in a Chinese city, the entire city was tested within days. Given China’s massive size and population, if the virus were devastating the country with anywhere near the intensity that it is devastating the United States, it would be simply impossible to hide.

Much the same can be said for Vietnam: it is a very large nation, with many westerns who live and work there, with relatively open access for western media, and with a population that has access to the internet and social media. To hide a massive number of cases in either China or Vietnam, not only from the western media but also from their own people (who would surely report these events online), would be impossible The only reason claims of “cover-up” in these nations even arise is because of a mixture of anti-Asian racism and anti-communism; no one questions if the numbers in western nations are artificially lowered, or indeed even in Asian nations allied to the United States, like South Korea and Japan. I have seen no meaningful evidence that either China or Vietnam has suppressed information about the pandemic, or indeed that either government would even be able to suppress this information, or desire to do so. Despite narratives to the contrary, these are not nations ruled by crazed, power-hungry autocrats; these governments seem to truly care for their people and to wish to protect them (much more than many westerns can honestly claim about their governments).

We could go through many reasons why the numbers from Cuba can be trusted, but one interesting point is that many Cubans have family living abroad that they are in active contact with. A survey of Cubans by the NORC at the University of Chicago found that 64 percent of Cubans have family living abroad; of those who had family abroad, 55 percent communicated with them at least once a month. It seems that if COVID-19 were secretly devastating the island, the news would quickly get out. Cuba’s healthcare system is also widely praised and famously effective, especially given the nation’s relative poverty and the ongoing impact of US sanctions. Given Cuba’s widely-praised healthcare system and the fact that it’s an island nation, it should be no surprise that Cuba has managed an effective response.

Laos, partly because it is simply a smaller nation, receives less attention from the Western media, so it is somewhat difficult for westerners to discover what’s happening on the ground. There was, however, an interesting quote from a western health professional in Laos in a Reuters article, one of the few english-language articles I could find on the nation’s success in containing the pandemic: “It’s difficult to hide, so yes, I believe it.” The article notes that “there were few unofficial reports of illnesses or deaths on social media or in villages.” Again, we must remind the reader that hiding a pandemic would be a monumental task; probably a more difficult one than simply containing the pandemic in the first place!

What of North Korea? Isn’t it a highly secretive, authoritarian country? Shouldn’t we be skeptical of all information from the DPRK’s government? It’s true that the DPRK has strict regulations on western media, including social media, and that there are heavy restrictions on entry for western journalists; it can be relatively difficult for westerners to get into the country. The severity of the narrative around the DPRK’s secrecy and isolation is overblown, however; before the pandemic, the border with China was relatively open and people often moved back and forth. But it is true that North Korea is closed off and isolated compared to most nations, and it is particularly closed off to the west — though this state of affairs has been at least partially imposed on the nation by outside forces; decades of extreme hostility, sanctions, and broad economic and diplomatic aggression from the US have made it quite hard for North Korea to connect, economically or diplomatically, with other nations. Regardless, the result is that westerners are essentially reliant on the North Korean government for information on what happens in its borders, and there is little capacity for independent verification of its narratives. So, if you’re a paranoid person, and if you are already distrustful of the DPRK’s government (as most Americans have been trained to be since birth), you might think there’s a cover-up taking place.

But what is incredibly clear — and has been widely reported in the west — is that North Korea has shut down its borders in response to the coronavirus pandemic. As we probably all already understand, coronavirus generally spreads from person to person; so if North Korea has successfully prevented anyone with the virus from entering its borders, it seems entirely possible that it may have avoided the virus completely. We don’t know for sure that the borders were closed before the virus entered the country — and the DPRK itself has reported many suspected cases — but it’s entirely plausible the strict border enforcement has simply kept the virus away. One must appreciate the irony: the narrative of western media in normal times is that it is nearly impossible for anyone to get in or out of the country, but now that there’s a pandemic, some western pundits have claimed that someone with the virus must have crossed into the country. Which is it? Is there no movement in or out of the country, or is there so much movement that it’s inevitable the virus has spread there?

We ask those with conspiratorial minds to question why they are so hesitant to accept the success of other nations. Is it an outward projection of bitterness over your own nation’s failings?

The burden of proof is on the side of the conspiracy theorists. While we may not be able to independently verify every COVID-19 statistic from every socialist nation, there has been no meaningful evidence presented that the numbers are at all skewed.

In the end it’s impossible to prove a negative; we can never prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no cover-up, and those with their own agendas and biases will refuse to accept the truth. But the next time you see a claim of a cover-up or skewed data, ask if there is any meaningful evidence to back the claim, or if the argument operates purely on bad faith and conspiratorial thinking.

But Isn’t It All China’s Fault?

Even if one accepts that China has now responded effectively and has contained the virus, they may bring up this argument: didn’t the Chinese government flounder in the pandemic’s early days? Didn’t they, either through incompetence or corruption or pure evil, fail to prevent the virus from spreading out of Wuhan and to the rest of the world? If it weren’t for their poor response, wouldn’t the virus have stopped there, and we wouldn’t have to deal with it at all?

The short answer is: no.

There are several great analyses debunking the myth that China’s initial response to the virus was in some way either incompetent or insidious: this analysis by FAIR, and this analysis by Tricontinental are good starting points.

Suffice it to say, Chinese public health officials and the Chinese government at multiple levels acted quickly to identify the virus and halt its spread. Their success is clear in that the virus has been effectively contained in China for months, and life in Wuhan has returned to normal. Yes, individuals in the Chinese government made mistakes — as every human being does. To find any government, anywhere in the world, that has made no “mistakes” would be impossible. But by any reasonable and honest standards, or when compared to the pandemic responses of other nations, China’s response was quick, effective, and responsible. The obvious comparison is to the United States, which failed for months to implement any kind of effective response even after they knew the virus’ severity. The Chinese government was dealing with a totally new virus, and they had no idea how severe or contagious it might be, yet they were still able to respond more quickly than the United States, which had detailed information on the virus because it was provided by Chinese public health officials. Does anyone seriously think that, if the coronavirus had first been identified in the United States, the government — at any level — would have responded quickly and efficiently enough to immediately prevent its spread?

But perhaps the more important point is this: we have no meaningful evidence that the coronavirus actually originated in China. The identification of a disease in a specific location is a very different thing from confirmation that the virus originated in that place. There is in fact significant evidence emerging that COVID-19 may have already been circulating throughout the world long before it was identified in Wuhan. If this is the case, then Chinese public health officials identified a virus that was already traveling the globe, and in doing so warned the rest of the world of its existence, saving countless lives.

The evidence we have does not mean we know for sure that the virus did not originate in China — but it does mean we have no clear evidence to indicate that it did. In short, we have no real idea where the virus originated. The WHO has said quite explicitly that “Where an epidemic is first detected does not necessarily reflect where it started.”

To indict a nation simply because it is the location where a virus is first detected is absurd on many levels. We simply don’t know where the virus actually originated, and for the entire western media to insist that it originated in China — without a single shred of actual evidence — is blatantly unscientific. To then blame China for somehow unleashing the virus on the world is not only irrational, but cruel; liberals have pushed this narrative for months, and they then act surprised when it leads to disgusting acts of anti-Asian racism.

The approach of western media is also incredibly dangerous, because it undermines the effectiveness of future pandemic responses by destroying trust and good faith. We need public health officials around the world to feel comfortable and confident quickly sharing information on new pathogens with the rest of the world. Despite the rabid accusations to the contrary, this is essentially what Chinese public health officials did — no, they didn’t share the information instantly (they were, understandably, probably more concerned with the well-being of their own citizens, and perhaps did not have the time or inclination to share every detail of what seemed at first to be an issue specific to one Chinese city) but they did so quickly, and it’s unclear what a slightly faster sharing of information would have accomplished (again, the United States did nothing for months even after it had all the necessary information). But if there was any hesitancy among Chinese officials about sharing information, perhaps it was that they feared exactly this response: that anything they did would be used against them, that they would be blamed for something entirely out of their control, that western media and politicians would attack them mercilessly for the smallest slip up.

The western media has done exactly the opposite of what should be done to encourage nations to more quickly share information about new pathogens: they have constantly slandered every aspect of the response from Chinese public health officials. Surely these public health officials will be more paranoid and hesitant to share information in the future, because they know western media is waiting to weaponize every piece of information against them.

Imagine you’re a Chinese public health official. You’ve identified several patients with a strange disease, which may be caused by a new pathogen, but this hasn’t yet been confirmed. You know that the western media has ruthlessly slandered your nation’s public health system over its early response to COVID-19. You know that as soon as you share information about this possible pathogen with the rest of the world, it will be sensationalized by the western press. You know that even if you do everything as openly and quickly as possible, at least some quarters of the western press will accuse you of being secretive and sluggish. You know that even if this possible pathogen turns out to be a false alarm, sections of the western press will invent unhinged conspiracy theories, and so any public knowledge of this pathogen will still do damage to your country’s reputation. Wouldn’t you be hesitant? Wouldn’t you want to consult further up the chain, receive guidance on the best course of action? Western media will only make Chinese officials more hesitant in sharing information in the future, because they have proven that they will take the most uncharitable view possible of any and all information shared from China.

Other Socialist Governments

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and is himself an unambiguously proud socialist. However, the National Assembly — Venezuela’s national legislative body — is dominated by anti-socialist political parties that are openly hostile to Maduro’s presidency. For years, with active help from the United States, these forces in the National Assembly — allied with the Venezuelan bourgeois and reactionaries — have openly attempted to undermine Maduro’s government, to the point of staging a (quite embarrassingly incompetent) coup attempt. At the same time, the United States has imposed devastating economic sanctions on Venezuela, crippling the nation’s economy; the healthcare system has been particularly hard hit by these sanctions.

This context is important, because while the executive branch of Venezuela’s government is firmly socialist, Venezuela does not have the same kind of total socialist leadership throughout all branches of government that we saw in the first five nations we studied. This considerably hampers the government’s effectiveness in all areas, including in its ability to respond to COVID-19. Crippling economic sanctions, and constant unrest and tension from opposition forces within the country, also present massive ongoing challenges for the executive branch.

In this context Venezuela’s response to COVID-19, while not as successful as the previous five nations, is still impressive. Venezuela has a deaths/100K rate of 2.99 — significantly below the US at 77.19. Venezuela has a population of nearly 29 million; it has 98,665 confirmed cases and 863 deaths. Let us compare this to other nations in Latin America. Peru has a slightly larger population at around 32 million. Peru has a deaths/100K rate of 110.40, with 939,931 confirmed cases and 35,317 deaths. This is about 9.5 times as many cases and 40 times as many deaths as Venezuela. Chile has almost 19 million people — around 2/3rds of the population of Venezuela. Chile has a deaths/100K rate of 79.85, with 536,012 confirmed cases and 14,955 deaths. This means Chile, despite having a significantly smaller population than Venezuela, has around 5 times as many cases and around 17 times as many deaths.

So, we see that even with active imperialist aggression from the United States, with limited control of the government, and with open and ongoing attempts to overthrow the executive branch from within the nation itself, Venezuela’s socialist executive has managed to significantly outperform the capitalist nations of Latin America in the containment of COVID-19.

Nicaragua is governed by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (popularly known as the Sandinistas). The Sandinistas explicitly define themselves as a socialist party. Nicaragua has a population of about 6.5 million. The nation has 5,725 confirmed cases and 159 deaths, giving it a deaths/100K rate of 2.46. We can compare this to El Salvador, also a Central American nation with about 6.5 million people. El Salvador has a deaths/100K rate of 16.6, with 37,250 confirmed cases and 1,070 deaths. This is about 6.5 times as many cases as Nicaragua, and about 6.7 times as many deaths.

A socialist government that receives little attention in the west is Nepal. Since 2018, the Nepal Communist Party (which was formed in that year through a merger of two other communist parties) has had an overwhelming majority in both houses of Nepal’s parliament. The Prime Minister, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, is also the chairman of the Communist Party.

Nepal, with about 28 million people, has 218,639 confirmed cases and 1,305 deaths, with a deaths/100K rate of 4.65. Nepal is bordered by China and India; we have discussed both these nations above and will not currently rehash them. Suffice it to say that, when adjusted for population, it seems that Nepal has underperformed China but outperformed India (the deaths/100K rate, from lowest to highest, are: China, 0.34; Nepal, 4.65; India, 9.85). However, considering the massive differences in population sizes, it is perhaps not fair to compare Nepal to either China or India. Let us instead compare Nepal directly to a western capitalist nation with a closer population size. The Netherlands has a population of about 17 million — a bit less than two-thirds of Nepal’s population. The Netherlands is often considered, at least by certain Americans, to be a kind of social-democratic country, with superior social services than the United States. The Netherlands has a deaths/100K rate of 51.92, significantly higher than Nepal’s. The Netherlands has 486,820 confirmed cases — around twice as many as Nepal — and 8,946 deaths, around 6.8 times as many as Nepal. All this, again, while having a smaller population.

The Capitalist West

The capitalist west is, of course, not a monolith. Unsurprisingly, there does seem to be divergence within the nations of the capitalist west; generally speaking, we see nations governed by more right-wing forces performing worse, and nations governed by more left-leaning or progressive forces performing better. The United States and the United Kingdom, both governed by far-right populists, have each had totally horrendous responses: the deaths/100K rate in the UK is 82.30; in the US, 78.20. Given the current state of the pandemic in both nations, one expects these numbers to rise quickly.

Let us look briefly at the “Nordic” nations, often held up in the United States as paragons of “democratic socialism” or “social democracy,” depending who you ask. Norway, Finland, and Iceland have all performed relatively well, with deaths/100K rates of 5.76, 6.80, and 7.35 respectively. Denmark has been slightly harder hit with a rate of 13.47. Sweden’s response has been infamously awful, even though the Social Democratic party is in government, with a rate of 62.91. No doubt the first four nations have far outperformed the US and UK (and many other western capitalist nations, for that matter), but they have still underperformed compared to all of the socialist nations we have discussed.

The only western capitalist nation with any real success has been New Zealand — again, this seems to be why that nation has received so much attention in the western press. While we acknowledge that New Zealand has the inherent advantage of being an island nation, the New Zealand government should still be given credit. But New Zealand is truly the expectation; while other capitalist nations have done quite well, most of those nations cannot be considered western: Taiwan and Singapore (both also island nations), South Korea, etc. Australia has done relatively well, with a deaths/100K rate of 3.63, but again, we must assume the advantages that come with being an island nation are partly responsible. The next highest performing western capitalist nation is Norway, which, with a deaths/100K rate of 5.76, does not outperform any of the socialist nations we have analyzed.

Let us here list out the deaths/100K rates of the socialist nations we have discussed, interspersed with the best performing western capitalist nations:

North Korea: 0

Laos: 0

Vietnam: 0.04

China: 0.34

New Zealand: 0.51

Cuba: 1.16

Nicaragua: 2.46

Venezuela: 3.01

Australia: 3.63

Nepal: 4.65

Norway: 5.76

….

US: 78.20

UK: 82.30

Conclusion

This is a topic that deserves much greater depth and nuance than I have provided here.

While I do not believe that any of the socialist nations I have mentioned are intentionally misrepresenting any of their COVID-19 numbers, it is certainly true that different nations use different criteria for reporting these numbers, and so direct comparison in the way I have done is not always the best approach. It is also of course the case that the number of confirmed cases in a nation depends largely on how widespread testing in that nation is, which is not a nuance I explored. I can say with near certainty that limited testing has not lowered the number of confirmed cases in China or Vietnam, as both nations have utilized widespread testing; I do not have much detailed knowledge on the testing practices of the other socialist nations studied above, but in general I do not believe the numbers have been considerably lowered by limited testing. If anything I think limited testing is more likely to have artificially lowered the numbers of many of the capitalist nations to which I have compared the socialist nations.

All these caveats aside, I was consistently surprised by how well the COVID-19 response of socialist nations compared to the response of capitalist nations. As I started to research, I expected the socialist response to be superior, but I did not expect it to be superior on such a large scale and to be so consistently superior in different socialist nations. The trends cannot be ignored. Socialist nations have consistently and decisively outperformed capitalist nations in this pandemic. It is becoming ever clearer that the future of human life lies with socialism.

There is much more that should be analyzed that has not been mentioned in this article.

Kerala deserves an in-depth analysis; the article “CoronaShock and Socialism” by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has an interesting section on Kerala’s response, but as Kerala is not a sovereign nation, it did not seem to make sense to compare it directly to other nations. A comparative analysis of Kerala’s response to other states in India would be interesting, but I do not have the in-depth knowledge of India required for such a comparison. I believe the numbers in Kerala may actually seem higher than other Indian states because (at least to my limited knowledge) Kerala has implemented widespread testing, but not all other Indian states have followed suit.

The response in Africa also warrants detailed analysis. According to the John Hopkins database from which I took all my numbers, many African nations have performed incredibly well, and far better than the west. For some nations, the low COVID numbers could be due to limited testing, but I highly doubt this entirely accounts for the low numbers; it seems to me that the response from governments and from society at large in Africa has been largely superior to the response in the west.

This article, at its core, is simply comparing numbers. I know this could be done in a much more elegant, detailed, and visually-appealing way; if anyone has experience with data analytics and data visualization, I encourage you to experiment with comparing the COVID-19 data of socialist and capitalist nations in more creative ways.

This analysis should be updated as the pandemic continues to devastate the capitalist west. The contrast between capitalism and socialism will only become clearer.