Coronavirus 23

I counted the countries on the Worldometers website, looking at the COVID-19 deaths column, today, 28th April 2020.

17 nations had had more than 1000 COVID19 deaths
34 have had 100 to 999
59 have had 10 to 99
61 have had 1 - 9
41 have had no deaths despite having has some cases.

Some countries are under-reporting. For the UK, for example, only hospital deaths are recorded and the true figure is much higher. 
Some countries, most likely poorer nations, may not have reliable testing or recording systems and so show a figure that is too low.
Some countries, such as Greenland, have small populations and are remote.

But bearing these and other factors in mind, it is noteworthy how unevenly distributed the pandemic has been.

Just five nations, USA, Italy, Spain, France and UK account for the bulk of deaths. They each have over 20,000 death while no other nation has reached 10,000. These five nations account for almost three quarters of all the world's COVID-19 related deaths.

Some countries have fared well: Vietnam has had zero deaths amongst its 95 million people, Taiwan 6 deaths in a population of 25 million and New Zealand has become the 'Western' text-book case of good governance with its 19 deaths.

The worst fears of major outbreaks with exponential spreading in poor, densely populated nations such as Nigeria have not (yet) come to pass. It is perhaps encouraging to see such low fatality numbers in so many of the poorer countries. Or, while all the talk is of easing of lockdowns, is the worst yet to come?