Tag Archives: Switzerland

Widening life expectancy gap between Republican and Democrat states of the USA

Posted on December 31, 2022 by colinmathers

In my previous post, I highlighted the 3-year drop in US life expectancy from 2019 to 2021. It contrasts with European and other high-income countries where the availability of vaccines and continued implementation of other public health measures resulted in … Continue reading →

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Huge drop in US life expectancy in 2020 and 2021

Posted on December 6, 2022 by colinmathers

US life expectancy dropped nearly 3 years during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The CDC has recently released US life expectancy estimates for 2021, finding a significant drop for the second year in a row. That decline … Continue reading →

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Australia now has one of the highest Covid new case rates in the world

Posted on December 31, 2021 by colinmathers

In the last two weeks, Australia has gone from having one of the lowest rates of new Covid cases per million population in the world to one of the highest. Most of these new cases are in NSW and according … Continue reading →

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Covid-19 booster shots and the Delta variant

Posted on November 21, 2021 by colinmathers

Switzerland is now offering a Covid-19 booster shot to to the 65+ and at-risk who has had their two Covid-19 vaccinations at least six months ago. It may soon be extended to all adults. I had my third shot last … Continue reading →

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A fourth Covid-19 wave hits Europe and Switzerland has a second referendum to end vaccine certificate requirements

Posted on November 14, 2021 by colinmathers

Covid-19 cases rose by 7% and deaths by 10% over the last week in Europe, as it enters a fourth (or fifth) wave and currently accounts for about two-thirds of infections reported globally. Belgium and the Netherlands, which have fully … Continue reading →

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Vaccination and the COVID Delta variant

Posted on June 30, 2021 by colinmathers

The COVID Delta variant (B.1.617.2), which started spreading widely in India last October, is highly transmissible and might cause more severe illness and hence death. It has spread to many countries and is now the dominant strain in the UK. … Continue reading →

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Premodern/modern religious values and happiness

Posted on May 5, 2021 by colinmathers

I recently came across rankings of countries by average reported happiness produced for The World Happiness Report which was released on March 20, 2021. This is a report produced by independent experts for the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network … Continue reading →

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Switzerland: COVID-19 situation and vaccine rollout

Posted on April 14, 2021 by colinmathers

Switzerland has fully vaccinated 8% of the population, somewhat ahead of France and Germany and some other EU countries (see first figure). For some reason, the percent of people who have received at least one vaccine is no higher than … Continue reading →

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A Covid Performance Index for countries

Posted on January 29, 2021 by colinmathers

An Australian think-tank, the Lowy Institute has produced a Covid Performance Index and used it to examine the impact of geography, political systems, economic development and population size on the Covid-19 outcomes around the world. The COVID Performance Index compiled … Continue reading →

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The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic

Posted on August 28, 2020 by colinmathers

Today, I took another look at the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic using data on confirmed cases downloaded from the Johns Hopkins University CCSE data repository. This post focuses mostly on western European countries, with a few others like … Continue reading →

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