[Goose]

It is a pretty low bar when we are saying Korean teenagers are expected to have greater savvy about global pandemics than a POTUS.

I would suggest that Korean teenagers have seen epidemics from China reach them with significant ill effects during their (relatively shorter) lifetimes, while the POTUS (along with all other Americans) have not had that experience. That probably matters a bit, don't you think?

---

By the way, here's that thread about Germany and "what are they doing right?"

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...ht=germany

A few places (including a tweet by Taleb) suggested that the discrepancy might have been cause of death attribution, but I didn't find anything conclusive.

And I agree with your point.  Regardless of how stringent their case definition was, their undercount is probably not significant, and is comparable or lower than a lot of other countries (where people were dying without ever getting tested).  The Economist doesn't have Germany but COVID-19 accounted for about 2/3 of overall excess deaths in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, 4/5 in the UK and New York, and excess deaths were more or less fully accounted for in France, Belgium, and Sweden.  Excess deaths are woefully underaccounted for in Turkey, Indonesia, and Austria.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail...-countries

BC

BC, do you have any insight into how they "normalize" for the lockdown effects (both increases and decreases due to change in the "normal" condition)? Or do they? I would think it would be pretty necessary. Maybe in most cases the effects are so overwhelming it doesn't matter, but it would still be nice to know they addressed it.

[Goose]

It is a pretty low bar when we are saying Korean teenagers are expected to have greater savvy about global pandemics than a POTUS.

I would suggest that Korean teenagers have seen epidemics from China reach them with significant ill effects during their (relatively shorter) lifetimes, while the POTUS (along with all other Americans) have not had that experience. That probably matters a bit, don't you think?

---

By the way, here's that thread about Germany and "what are they doing right?"

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...ht=germany

A few places (including a tweet by Taleb) suggested that the discrepancy might have been cause of death attribution, but I didn't find anything conclusive.

And I agree with your point.  Regardless of how stringent their case definition was, their undercount is probably not significant, and is comparable or lower than a lot of other countries (where people were dying without ever getting tested).  The Economist doesn't have Germany but COVID-19 accounted for about 2/3 of overall excess deaths in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, 4/5 in the UK and New York, and excess deaths were more or less fully accounted for in France, Belgium, and Sweden.  Excess deaths are woefully underaccounted for in Turkey, Indonesia, and Austria.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail...-countries

BC

BC, do you have any insight into how they "normalize" for the lockdown effects (both increases and decreases due to change in the "normal" condition)? Or do they? I would think it would be pretty necessary. Maybe in most cases the effects are so overwhelming it doesn't matter, but it would still be nice to know they addressed it.