No woman is an Island (a bit nerdy)

Hey, Avivah, where’s Carrie?

A reader sends a link to an article claiming that countries with the best coronavirus response are led by women, above. I ran this assertion by my wife, Jing, who pooh-pooh’d it. “Too many variables” she says. And she’s right. (And a woman....). Overall it’s a bit of clickbait nonsense. 

Iceland? Just one of our HK suburbs -- Kowloon --  has twice Iceland’s population! We are larger than all but two of the countries above.
Some Covid figures are all over the place. Philip Bowring goes through some of the issues in “Covid figures: reality and illusion”.
Again, Hong Kong is ignored. The Author Ms Avivah (who just happens to own a “gender equality consultancy”. Hmmm) makes no mention of the one place doing the best in the world, Hong Kong, which is also led by a woman, Carrie Lam.
Not only the best figures in the world. We have greater population than New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark, five out the seven woman above. But we’re kind of part of China and these days “China bad”, so... ignore....
I reckon that the best measure of how countries are doing in handling Covid -- and bearing in mind all the problems with the stats, all the differences between countries and cities, etc -- is “Deaths per million of population”. Population numbers are well known. The Covid deaths are also pretty well known (I know... some are questionable, but less than with other figures, like infections).
That’s the chart here. From best to worst performing countries. Least to most deaths per million.

Death per million population, least to most. Click to enlarge.
(Earlier charts were most to least)

Taiwan figures are on top, but only just, over Hong Kong, and we in HK have better figures for Case Recovery and Case Fatality Rates. That’s why I say Hong Kong is doing the best in the world, especially bearing in mind we’re literally part of the mainland, and all the challenges that come from that. (Even if Hong Kong itself is literally an island).

I’m following Netherlands and Sweden in yellow shade because they are places not going into heavy lockdown. I want to see how they’re doing, and answer is... not too badly. And much better than France, Italy, etc.... [Correction: not Netherlands. Just Sweden in Europe is not in full lockdown].

Now.... What’s the real connection between the top six places on the chart above? Answer: they’re all Islands! Taiwan to New Zealand via Japan and Oz. All islands.  No real surprise there, right?

To Avivah, the author of the clickbait article above, I’d say, in answer to "what is the common element in the countries doing well?”:

"No, Woman!... is an Island!"