I am putting this up because I have been hearing seeing people making claims about this that do not agree with what I have just seen at Statista for today, the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, for deaths per million according to the pandemic virus. I am not going to comment on the list further, although I am tempted, but the situation is changing so fast.
Belgium
Spain
Italy
France
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Switzerland
Sweden
Ireland
USA
Oh, I suppose I should provide the same list for infections per capita, a less definite number due to testing variations, than the former. Best I could do was a three day old list from Statista, but here it is.
Spain
Belgium
Ireland
Italy
Switzerland
USA
France
Portugal
Netherlands
UK
Addendum after 4 comments: Here are top 15 in terms of testing rates per capita
Switzerland
Portugal
Italy
Germany
Austria
Spain
Ireland
Canada
Russia
Belgium
USA
Netherlands
Turkey
UK
France
Barkley Rosser
Please explain the point of this description.
ReplyDeleteAt least partly in response to claims I have heard that the US was doing much better than it appears to be according to these numbers.
ReplyDeleteSome other observations, since I am asked, is that there are no Asian nations on either list, even though it started there. Indeed, with the exception of the US, all the others are in western Europe.
What we see is consistent with a pattern that involved an initial major outbreak in Italy that then spread to neighboring nations, with if anything it s surpeise that Italy has fallen back a bit. Most are neighbors or neer neighbors of Italy, although it seems Spain has surpassed Italy, and Belgium and Netherlands vulnerable due to being the most densely populated in Europe, at least of the nations not micro-states like San Marino.
In terms of policy, hard to say too much. UK pretty high up with its delays in doing anything, with that holding for geographic outlier US as well, although Ireland up there with UK, and I gather they have had more sensible policies.
Then there is Sweden that has gotten a lot of press for its much weaker lockdown. It is not that high due presumably to being farther away from the main European epcenters of Italy and Spain as well as being not densely populated exept for Stockholm and a few other cities. But it is clearly ahead of its Nordic neighbors.
But I havee to say there is a lot of randomness in all this, and I do not know why US is higher in infectons than in deaths, while UK other way around. This may mean we are boing to move up on the deaths list, or it may mean we are doing more testing, although I doubt the latter.
There is also the absence of Germany from either list, reportedly with it having done a lot of testing. It has also presumably helped block the virus from getting much into the Nordic nations, although Sweden has more than the others and more than Germany.
Here is one source that gives deaths per million population and quite a bit of other statistics. Sweden is currently doing the worst in that statistic according to this.
ReplyDeletehttps://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-deaths-per-million
The first chart in that link may be just the daily deaths per day per million population which is different than total previous deaths per million. So that might be important since different countries are at different stages in this pandemic. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate these comments and have a direction in which t think now. I prefer to use:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdUOA?Si
and make my own charts.
As for the United States, as Joe Stiglitz just commented, the experience fearfully and inexcusably poor.
Australia and NZ (and China) acted early and fast - their figures peaked early and are declining. Spain and Italy seem to be over the hump (at least for the first wave). The UK seems be on a plateau. US figures for deaths per million are still steadily rising.
ReplyDeleteYes Anonymous @12:10- That link is easier to understand whereas I misunderstood the one I posted. I will use that now. Thanks. Do not disagree that USA wasted time and botched preparations for this very foreseeable crisis. Major failure that is costing lives. I still don't agree with Swedish policy but hope it works out for them.
ReplyDeleteTaiwan and South Korea records much better than China's, up there with New Zeland, especially given their greater exposure to source.
ReplyDeleteDespite a weak economy and corruption charges, incumbent Democratic Party won big in parliamentary elections a few days ago largely on perception of good management of virus by President Moon, moved early wirh lots of testing and tracing.
Like New Zeland and Germany, leader of Taiwan is a woman.
Women leaders seems to be the answer.
ReplyDeleteAt first, little was known. Now, ...
ReplyDeleteObviously, population is elephant in the room; and a globe-trotting elephant at that. No easy solution there.
If we find a vaccine, or, if we don't and can only find a therapeutic drug (or if we can't), what about the next variation? Will virus pandemics, like hurricanes with global warming, be coming more frequently? Can the earth sustain such a large population along with globalization?
How many more screw-ups are humans permitted?
Ken Melvin wrote (April 23, 2020 at 11:42 AM): How many more screw-ups are humans permitted?
ReplyDeleteBased on Bismarck's experience, the answer to your question is "Many, many more."
If we have a working tests - both current and antibody, then ramping them up would help us to lower the per unit cost and testing a lot would allow us to get a handle on who has it and who doesn't and arm people with information and would be the only cost effective way to allow us to open up more and reduce the impact in terms of unemployment, hunger, and fear. It seems Merkel figured this out. As James Madison said, Knowledge is Liberty.
ReplyDeleteReuters has just reported that Merkel, Macron, and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa have just started a new multinational effort to coordinate a search for an effective vaccine, with this being done through the WHO. The US was not invited to participate and is not.
ReplyDeleteHere is encouraging article about vaccine study in China.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.livescience.com/experimental-covid19-vaccine-protects-monkeys.html?fbclid=IwAR1aro6b4hv449OXOj3eqeVstBB47r5wVT7fAn1mjpLgz_s7OrKtVjTRjJw
My son's comment on this study/article:
"This study also found that the vaccine triggered antibodies that could neutralize the virus in vitro, at least, which gives more support to the idea that antibodies do work, which means convalescent plasma will work now and monoclonal antibodies developed for SARS/MERS might also lead to a usable therapy."
Note convalescent plasma was used during the Spanish Flu epidemic.
Moderna (Boston area?) is Ph 2/3 trailing a vaccine using a more modern approach initial science funded by DoD (DARPA). A lot of funding moved that way for ramping production.
Not much was recorded on the Spanish Flu, as warring nations preferred the adversary not know the health status of the populations. I found one odd reference to a US division quarantined by flu "missing movement" to France sometime in 1918.
This pandemic spread in waves, and we see that the "leaders" in terms of incidence vary every day. But there is good news, already many countries are ready to gradually withdraw their countries from quarantine. Health to all!
ReplyDelete