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Western Europe vs US - lex24 - 07-27-2020

England,Spain, Italy, Germany, France. The total number of deaths from Covid are about 149,000. Together, their population is about equal to US.  US deaths are about 150,000.  

Tell me again how much better they have done in Europe?  Germany is the outlier. 9,000 deaths with 84 Million people.  Take them out and the death rate for the rest of Western Europe is higher than the US.

RE: Western Europe vs US - Snorlax94 - 07-27-2020

Well for one there’s this:

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/teaser/22102.jpeg

[Image: 22102.jpeg]

And this
[Image: daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average.svg]

RE: Western Europe vs US - JustAnotherFan - 07-28-2020

(07-27-2020, 10:11 PM)lex24 Wrote:  England,Spain, Italy, Germany, France. The total number of deaths from Covid are about 149,000. Together, their population is about equal to US.  US deaths are about 150,000.  

Tell me again how much better they have done in Europe?  Germany is the outlier. 9,000 deaths with 84 Million people.  Take them out and the death rate for the rest of Western Europe is higher than the US.

They learned from their mistakes. We didn't learn from their mistakes (initially) or our own (later). It's pretty easy to make the comparison now. Come back in three months.

RE: Western Europe vs US - Farm93 - 07-28-2020

(07-28-2020, 04:54 AM)JustAnotherFan Wrote:  
(07-27-2020, 10:11 PM)lex24 Wrote:  England,Spain, Italy, Germany, France. The total number of deaths from Covid are about 149,000. Together, their population is about equal to US.  US deaths are about 150,000.  

Tell me again how much better they have done in Europe?  Germany is the outlier. 9,000 deaths with 84 Million people.  Take them out and the death rate for the rest of Western Europe is higher than the US.

They learned from their mistakes. We didn't learn from their mistakes (initially) or our own (later). It's pretty easy to make the comparison now. Come back in three months.
Also those countries have fantastic public transportation networks that their citizens use every day.   In many of the largest cities a lot of citizens don't even own cars.    That enabled COVID19 to spread more quickly (see NYC).   The idea that a collection of EU countries have worked together to take steps to crush their COVID curve better than the USA (a single country) says a lot sadly. 

Taking Germany out of the EU tally is questionable.  Germany drives many of the major EU economic and health policies that are eventually adopted by many in the EU.   If we really want to pick a country to exclude it would be the UK since they are no longer a member of the EU, are on an island off the continent, and proudly left the EU in part because of EU-level policies on various issues.  Take out the UKs 45,000 deaths and the European tally looks a bit better.

FWIW - We don't need to wait three months.   At this rate 3 weeks will be more than enough to see the difference.   :(

RE: Western Europe vs US - BostonCard - 07-28-2020

Italy was the first country to be hit hard outside of China.  They were the canary in the Western coal mine.  The UK is well known to have blown their response; they waffled with the idea to just let the virus run rampant before the Kings college projections scared the bejesus out of the government and they reversed course, but the damage was done and the virus started running rampant, and their per capita death rate is highest in the world among major economies (Belgium is higher as is tiny San Marino).  Germany is a good example of how to handle the pandemic, having had a robust testing regimen early and being quick to shut down as case counts rose.  Macron's party got wiped out in the recent local elections, and he has just reshuffled his cabinet, replacing his prime minister. I view that as a reflection of the fact that the French people think he blew the response.

If you want to make the case that the response in France and Spain, two countries hit hard as benchmarks, you can, but I would hold our response to a higher standard.

BC

RE: Western Europe vs US - Goose - 07-28-2020

(07-28-2020, 10:28 AM)BostonCard Wrote:  Germany is a good example of how to handle the pandemic, having had a robust testing regimen early and being quick to shut down as case counts rose.


BC
I totally agree that Germany did a good job of handling the pandemic as it was presented to them. They did a lot of things right. However, we also have to take them at their word. Several different German experts have stated that Germany was "lucky". They got hit in Bavaria and then had a breathing spell in which they had few cases. This gave them time to get ready. Furthermore, when they did start getting hit harder by the virus they saw many more cases in the younger patients than Italy and Spain did. That kept their death rate down.
However, for those of us who think the US did a less-than-adequate job of responding to the epidemic, we should remember Seneca's quote “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” . Germany took advantage of their breathing space and got ready. It wasn't an absolutely smooth process. There were arguments among the experts. Testing wasn't what they wanted it to be initially. Then the politicians had a few moments of not immediately agreeing with each other. But they resolved those things rapidly and without creating such a political uproar things couldn't function. The made the most of their opportunities. The USA certainly did not.

RE: Western Europe vs US - BostonCard - 07-28-2020

(07-28-2020, 12:46 PM)Goose Wrote:  Furthermore, when they did start getting hit harder by the virus they saw many more cases in the younger patients than Italy and Spain did. That kept their death rate down.

The Spanish seroprevalence study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31483-5/fulltext shows that broadly speaking the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was similar among adults of all age categories (it did seem a bit lower in children).  Seroprevalence by immunoassay, which is the more reliable test of the two, ranged from 5% in 20 - 34 year olds to 4.5% in ≥ 65 year olds (with overlapping confidence intervals).  To me, that suggests that the virus wasn't hitting older people in Spain so much as older people were being tested in Spain, because when the testing infrastructure is poor, you only test really sick patients, who tended to be older.  Germany, who had their testing act together, was able to test more broadly, so it tested people with milder symptoms (plus asymptomatic contacts) and thus while the tested population was younger in Germany, I would guess that the infected population was broadly similar between the two countries (in fact, if anything, the median age of the population is older in Germany than Spain).

To me, that's not luck, that's having your sh*t together. 

BC

RE: Western Europe vs US - 82 Card - 07-28-2020

The per capita death rates in the US states that got hit early, around the same time as Europe, are higher than the worst of Europe. New Jersey New York and Massachusetts have death rates higher than even San Mareno. Connecticut and Rhode Island come in below San Mareno but higher than Belgium.

RE: Western Europe vs US - Goose - 07-28-2020

(07-28-2020, 01:29 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  
(07-28-2020, 12:46 PM)Goose Wrote:  Furthermore, when they did start getting hit harder by the virus they saw many more cases in the younger patients than Italy and Spain did. That kept their death rate down.

The Spanish seroprevalence study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31483-5/fulltext shows that broadly speaking the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was similar among adults of all age categories (it did seem a bit lower in children).  Seroprevalence by immunoassay, which is the more reliable test of the two, ranged from 5% in 20 - 34 year olds to 4.5% in ≥ 65 year olds (with overlapping confidence intervals).  To me, that suggests that the virus wasn't hitting older people in Spain so much as older people were being tested in Spain, because when the testing infrastructure is poor, you only test really sick patients, who tended to be older.  Germany, who had their testing act together, was able to test more broadly, so it tested people with milder symptoms (plus asymptomatic contacts) and thus while the tested population was younger in Germany, I would guess that the infected population was broadly similar between the two countries (in fact, if anything, the median age of the population is older in Germany than Spain).

Well BC, you may be correct, but that conclusion isn't mine. It is the conclusion of the Bavarian Health Minister. The cases that finally pushed the Germans into lockdown were lots of skiers returning to North Rhine-Westphalia. Up to that point the Health Ministers couldn't agree to do so. Needless to say, the skiers were not "old guys". I would guess we will need a seroprevalence study from Germany to really know. It may be they protected their older population better than Spain (and certainly Italy) did.
Quote:To me, that's not luck, that's having your sh*t together.
On this we agree. My point was that Germany made use of their "luck", and we did not.

RE: Western Europe vs US - BostonCard - 07-28-2020

To my knowledge, Germany has not done a country-wide seroprevalence study (kudos, BTW for the Spaniards to have done so; that is a very informative study).  There have been a couple of local seroprevalence studies in Germany, including this one in Heidenberg in North Rheine-Westphalia: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.04.20090076v2 (note, not peer reviewed), which showed "Age and sex were not found to be associated with the infection rate."


BC