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Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

From a link in the article, their impoverished neighbor has much higher numbers. A sizable discrepancy has existed throughout 2020, 2021 and 2022, i.e. before and after vaccines became available, so that doesn't seem to be a factor.

> Across the border in the neighboring Dominican Republic, with roughly the same population, the pandemic has killed almost ten times the number, 2,364.

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The Dominican Republic may not be very wealthy, but they're not exactly impoverished either, especially not by Haitian standards. Their GDP per capita PPP was more than six times as high in 2021. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locat... The 2,364 deaths are probably still an undercount, but less so than in Haiti.

Yes, the Dominican Republic has much better medical infrastructure. As of 2021-06-24 (translated from Spanish):

> According to official data, the country has applied 7.402.235 doses and already 2.655.737 people are fully vaccinated

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2021/06/24/republica-dominicana-o...

The first rounds of vaccination were AstraZeneca, and as noted in that link at that point in time:

> In total, the caribbean country has bought around 31 million dosis of covid-19 vaccine. Of those, 10,768,000 are Sinovac, 9,999,990 Pfizer, and another 10 million are AstraZeneca.

Meanwhile, as per the article which is dated 2021-05-14:

> When COVAX, a program run by the World Health Organization, offered Haiti AstraZeneca vaccines, the government declined the offer.

Good find. Thanks! A lot of the other points made here also make much more sense. I stand corrected.

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