The U.S. now has 119 deaths per million citizens. Germany has 55, Japan 2. Israel 19. Norway 31

[Tom Rinaldo]

We are by no means the worst nation as ranked by Covid-19 deaths per million. The UK is at 241, France is at 288, Belgium is at 497 etc. But the U.S.has NOTHING to brag about when nations like those in the subject line above, and Canada at 40 deaths per million, Portugal at 69 deaths per million, South Korea at 7 deaths per million, and Singapore at 2 deaths per million continue to do substantially better than America does at holding down fatalities from this novel Corona virus.

I skipped right past nations on th chart that seemingly have lower infection rates than the U.S. if there may be cause to doubt the accuracy of reporting. So China, Iran, and Russia etc., all of which report significantly fewer deaths per capita than the U.S., are not included here for comparison. But I think a comparison to Austria which now has 50 deaths per million is legitimate. So is a comparison to Denmark which has 61 deaths per million.

The U.S. is solidly in the middle of the pack of nations in regards to preventing citizen deaths from Covid-19. But we have "the best scientists in the world", and "the best health care system in the world", according to Donald Trump, and we also had the advantage of watching this disease run rampant through China and then Europe before case loads in the U.S. began to explode. We have had more time to prepare but have suffered worse outcomes than many other nations faced with similar challenges. So what then is lacking in the United States? The facts clearly point toward our not having the best national leadership in the world. Trump can spin and bluster for hours every day but he can't erase facts that indict his leadership. The truth lies in the coffins.

Here is the source chart I referenced. You have to click below the first sampling of nations to get to the fuller list:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Who are the best leaders in the world wrt CV-19? These seven women.

?fit=scale

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/#3d2610543dec

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Duly noted, with great respect and admiration. n/t

[blm]

3. ✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

[Igel]

5. One Taiwanese and 6 Europeans.

5 of them from Northern Europe/Scandinavia.

They have other generalizations. Small, except for Germany. High degree of social trust. Fairly homogeneous in terms of demographics. And they score high on the NEAP--where the high score reflects something close to the average, while the high-ish score that the US produces is a mix of scores as high as the best of them + scores from schools that rank significantly lower.

I can't help but notice that S. Korea's consistently cited as having some small success, but for some reason that leader is excluded.


Success notwithstanding, if there's no vaccine we're going to have to go with natural immunity building up (if that even happens) and their success will have been entirely short term. While the world's shut down, they're waiting. When the world's up and running, they'll be shut down.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Except that Sweden, similar demographics and ethos as the other Nordic countries,

has terrible statistics because they wouldn't shut things down. 152 deaths per million vs. Norway's 30.

[uponit7771]

7. S Korea and China are not lead by women, I understand people don't want to believe China but there

... are multiple societies in Asia and Australia that are leading the per capita infection rate

[logme]

4. If not innacurate per se, those numbers are misleading ...

There is a huge caveat here : not all countries collect covid related death with the same accuracy or methodology. Few even tally deaths outside hospitals.

Belgium may have been hit hard, but those numbers used in this fashion are misleading.
There is so far, no reason to suspect the death rate in Belgium to be significantly higher than the UK and counties with a similar demography.

Very few countries have actually come through with their promise to consistently communicate the data related to death in retirement homes for instance.

Belgium is rather one of the too few countries like France for which I can found clear and updated data on their government website.

After a very shaky first week, France has done a rather good job when collecting data from retirement homes. Although it is expected to still be partial, they do publish not only the hospital death tally daily, but also the consolidated data from retirement homes added weekly.


For instance with the data from the 17/04

- UK ( 67M ) : 15,464 deaths in hospitals + not actively collected yet ( referred to the ONS) => rate of 231/M
- FR ( 67M ) : 11 842 deaths in hospitals + 7 481 deaths in retirement homes => rate of 177/M
- Belgium ( pop 10M ) : 2379 in hospitals + 2387 in retirement homes => rate of 238/M using an homogeneous basis of comparison.


To make my point clear : it is like trying to draw insight from a comparison about the debt issue in several countries using only public death for some and private debt or the sum of the 2 for others countries.
All information is useful, but used this way they do not give a proper & accurate picture of the situation.


Websites like worldometers.info, many tabloid and even reputable institutions do a poor job when handling those numbers and communicate it without proper explanations to the general public.

This contribute to an increasing distrust of health authorities and a borderline paranoia in parts of the population.



Those discrepancies is one of the many reason it is difficult to compare the situation in different countries. Making all the more hardous to build effective projections/models.

Time will come in a few month to properly assess and reflect on the way each governments handled the crisis, but right now lets encourage governments that are trying to be transparent ( even though it might cost them due to the confusion in the media and among the general public) .


Some official Sources in Europe :

SP : https://covid19.isciii.es/
IT : https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/
UK : https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
BE : https://d34j62pglfm3rr.cloudfront.net/downloads/news/pressconf_20200416.pdf
FR : https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees




PS :

I am wondering how the US collect and process data outside hospitals. Do they have a monitoring net in the retirement homes & specialized care unit similar to the "médecins référents d'établissement" ( aka a doctor mandated to monitor the situation in each retirement homes, who can, if necessary, launch inquires and post-mortem test in case of suspicious deaths etc..).

Are those numbers tallied by each states or at the federal level ? It is a bit hard to found a clear cut explanation of US methodology and policy on the matter.