Health, Wealth and the Double Paradox of COVID-19 Mortality in Low-Income Countries

COVID-19 mortality has remained low in the poorest countries, exposing the fragile link between prosperity and health. Emerging evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 did spread widely in low-income countries, but infections were largely asymptomatic. We suggest the demographic transition, the epidemiological transition and the hygiene hypothesis as three useful frameworks to understand the paradoxical relation between human health and prosperity during the pandemic