Qatar World Cup: a tournament shadowed by corruption, suffering and death
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Events like the World Cup are an effort to whitewash the Qatari monarchy, which isn’t any better or different than say Saudi.
—Hamas, probably
It's 2 million workers. They say 6500 of them have died over 10 years. That's a death rate of 32 per 100k per year. That is not a high death rate. It's actually quite low by Western standards.
For comparison the death rate for males 15-24 in the US is 100 per 100k, and for males 25-34 is 177 per 100k. I assume that most migrant workers are young which is why I'm comparing to younger US males.
1. Your calculation is wrong.
2. Qatar is misrepresenting numbers.
3. Qatar has safer working conditions than US.
4. The reality is absurd.
I feel like you're going to have quite different results if you're comparing California to Florida or other deep southern states
I pick:
5. The Guardian should have done the death rate calculation, seen that it is actually low by Western standards, and investigated to see why.
As far as your list goes:
> 1. Your calculation is wrong.
6500 deaths / 2 million people / 10 years x million / 10 100k = 32.5 deaths / 100k people / year, so the calculation checks out.
> 2. Qatar is misrepresenting numbers.
The Guardian isn't relying just on Qatar's numbers. They also used numbers from the countries that the migrants came from.
Regardless, that's one of the thing they should have investigated when their numbers gave such a low death rate.
> 3. Qatar has safer working conditions than US.
The deaths the Guardian is reporting aren't just deaths at work. They are how many migrant workers died regardless of cause while in Qatar.
It is quite possible that Qatar has worse working conditions than the US, and has a much higher at work death rate than the US, but has a much lower death rate outside of work.
In the US significant fractions of the deaths of young males are poisoning (drug overdoses falls under this), suicide, automobile accidents, and homicide.
Qatar has a very strong anti-drug policy, with harsh penalties and little tolerance. Their drug death rate is about 1/25th that of the US.
They are also quite intolerant of drunk driving. If you are in an accident you are considered drunk if there is any detectable alcohol in your blood, even if the accident was entirely the fault of the other driver. That's so low a tolerance that one drink the night before can count as drunk driving the next morning. I'd expect then that they have a much lower automobile accident rate. (Also I'd expect most migrants use other forms of transport).
Qatar also has a very low homicide rate (about 1/20th the US rate).
For 3 of the 4 top non-medical causes of young male death in the US, Qatar likely has a much lower death rate. Is that enough to offset any higher death rate at work sufficiently enough to bring the overall death rate down to well below US young male death rates?
I don't know. I should know because the Guardian should have covered that.
> 4. The reality is absurd.
The Guardian is absurd in this case.
If the total number is significantly different that the 2M in Qatar, it's not as straightforward to draw comparisons.
Nevertheless, the truth is still there. I just hope the guardian had went more in depth about the death cause distribution.
And for all of you that still have doubts about these numbers, remember that your own societies run propaganda on you, making you believe that you are the best society in the world and all others suck. That's far from being the truth. Always question yourself to try and understand why you believe that what you think is true.
> And for all of you that still have doubts about these numbers, remember that your own societies run propaganda on you,
I don't think there is any propaganda. US is still the #1 place where people choose to abandon their country and move. Qatar is nowhere close in that list. Nunbers speaks itself.
You are comparing the rate of work related deaths in one population with total deaths in another population.
The total death rate will obviously include non work related deaths like car accidents and such. That's what your America male 15-24 death rate statistic is about.
Meanwhile the Qatari migrant worker death rate is focused on work related issues. Death due to work should be pretty close to 0 in a wealthy country like Qatar shouldn't it?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r...
In a country of 2.6 million people, Qatar is 90% migrants, laborers to white collar workers. Over the span of 10+ years, there will be mortality for that population.
It is like making a headline "450,000 black Americans have died in the year Biden took office". How foolish would a news journal would look if they published a headline like that?