Before I give the answer....a few facts.
Most of us carry around a multitude of viruses and bacteria that happily co-exist with each other, interact with our own bodies (and others), boosting our immune system....occasionally we get poorly, recover and get stronger....most of us will only die of old age, our bodies just worn out from overuse, excessive revving.
The gardeners amongst us will last the longest, not just because we eat non-chemically-altered food, but because we immerse our hands in trillions of live bacteria every day, simply sloshing our hands around in a cold rain-water bucket before downing another beer.....minute doses of new immunity every day.
So, the better our immune system, the more prepared we are to fight off a new corona (crown)-type virus....and the complete opposite proves the point ie those with immune-deficient bodily systems like HIV or AIDS can die from the simplest of diseases unless they get immediate medical intervention.
The Oldies amongst us will naturally die first, we know that, but if we have now stopped smoking and allowed our lungs to at least partially repair themselves, live outside the industrial areas and breathe cleaner air, eat non-chemical food, non-fatty foods, fresh greens, 30 minutes of exercise per day etc etc....our chances will get better of surviving old-age and these newly-emerging viruses.....ideally get back to the land and live with nature
......but what happens to us Oldies if our immune systems were giving an additional boost in our youth?.
Death rates in Europe, persons dying from Covid19 per million of population (IMO infection rates do not matter as the vast majority of people are surviving which is great news for the "herd" immunity bank. They are only relevant for not overloading hospitals and managing the return from lockdown back to a mobile society 6 months or a year from now?), so Death Rates in a table form using today's and yesterday's Worldometer figures.
Europe's "worst 5 countries for deaths" ignoring San Marino and Andorra because of their miniscule populations ie 50 dead between them caused their ppm's to sky rocket.
Spain - 297
Italy - 283 *
Belgium - 176 *
France - 137
Holland - 123 *
Three of these "worst 5" covid-hit countries (*) also
WERE THE ONLY 3 European countries to have
NEVER given their school-children the UK-standard Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine ie the TB jab, followed up by a booster-shot several years later, as standard.(different countries had different rules ie you could request jabs if you were in high-risk groups but Italy, Belgium and Holland never adopted the mass immunisation policy. Pulled this from the TB data world map
BCG mass vaccination has never been performed in Italy, but, since the 1940s, vaccination campaigns were promoted in some areas of the country. No information about the type of vaccine and mode of administration are included in national policies. Theoretically, more than one type of vaccine can be used in different parts of the country. When the national health system was reformed in 2008 (legislative decree no. 81/2008), a number of previous policies were implicitly abrogated, including the one concerning BCG vaccination (2001), although this remains a matter of debate. )
Now the next question is what about Spain and France who are getting hit hard?
Spain had a TB vaccine policy only from 1965 to 1981 whereas it's Iberian neighbour Portugal has
COMPULSORY VACCINATIONS AT BIRTH, to this day......and a covid19 death rate of only 34 ppm, 8 times lower than it's neighbour with a huge land border!!
France (137 ppm) is the only one of the "worst 5" I cannot figure out, they've had a TB programme from 1950 to 2007
though they've chopped and changed the strain of vaccine a few times
2004: Stopped revaccinations of children and adults of certain professions; 2004: Routine tuberculin tests stopped; 2006: Multipuncture (Monovax) replaced by BCG ID (BCG SSI); 2007: Compulsory vaccination suspended and replaced by targeted vaccination of high-risk children
Lastly looked at South America, where the highest death rate was in Ecuador (highlighted by Driller a few days ago)
Ecuador - 11 ppm (*)
Brazil - 3
Chile - 2
Peru - 3
Argentina - 1
Columbia - 1
Uruguay - 2
.....and lo and behold, Ecuador is the only South American country not to currently have a universal TB jab (found some old medical papers showing vaccination in the past, 1961? but unclear when universally abandoned)
Interactive world map here, shows current and past BCG-TB policy....hover cursor and click on country
http://www.bcgatlas.org/
Peer-reviewed paper on BCG-TB World policy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062527/
Wiki details on BCG here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCG_vaccine quote Italy:
BCG mass vaccination has never been performed in Italy.
4,000 Australian hospital workers to be trialled with the TB jab Clinical trials begin in Australia
A team of Australian researchers announced on Friday that they have started testing the tuberculosis vaccine on a large scale to see if it can protect healthcare staff from the coronavirus.
About 4,000 Australian hospital workers will participate in the clinical trial that will seek to determine if the tuberculosis vaccine can reduce symptoms of COVID-19, researchers at the Murdoch Institute in Melbourne said.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/...-for-a-century
Summary - There is no conclusive evidence that a simple TB shot in our youth (I've still got my scar on my arm) was, or is, the answer but common sense tells us that any boosting of our general immune system in our childhood should help the general spread of diseases and help our chances of survival...that's just Nature's way of helping us to stay alive and building up our innate and adaptive immune system.....maybe, just maybe, the TB shot all those years ago, forced our body to recognise it was under attack and built a defense mechanism, now "stored in our genetic memory-bank".....it was worth a few hours reading for me anyway, interesting stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system