180,000 cases and Trump's doing nothing to control it., page-95

Now you're using very specific stats to try and prove your point "... winter... end of August".
The real figure for the USA is 3,331 per 100k. Much more than the EU countries.


Well, that's because the opening post referenced what was happening currently.

One thing one has to, when comparing cases numbers across countries, is to apply contextual comparison of differential rates of testing. (Because, clearly, given how contagious the virus is, there is clearly a correlation between testing and case numbers).

And the US's test rate per capita is running around 45% higher than the EU.

So, there's that adjustment that needs to be made.

The other thing to consider is that the true impact of a pandemic, and the success to which it is being mitigated, are not known in the space of a mere few months; it often takes a few years to be able to really understand what happened and who did well and who didn't.

So, point-in-time analysis is often misleading (take for example how terribly Sweden was perceived to be doing in the first few months, compared to how well it is doing in the past 4 or 5 months).

So accurate pandemic evaluation requires continuum analysis.

Let's go back to the US vs EU comparison using time continuum analysis:

Since the very start of the pandemic, EU countries, collectively, represent 10m cases, so based on the EU's 480m-population that works out to some 2,060 cases per 100k. Which is indeed lower than the US's 3,330 per 100k, which you correctly quote (But don't forget to make the adjustment for the differing rates of testing between the US and the EU).

But if you ran those numbers at any other times since the start of Covid you would get starkly different stories:

For example, in July, the US was on 1,432 cases per 100k, while the EU was on a little more than 330 cases per 100k, so the US per capita cases were running at 4.3 times higher than the EU aggregate.

At the end of August the US was at 1,883 vs the EU at 459. (So the ratio was 4.1 times).

At the end of September the US was at 2,249 vs the EU at 682. (Ratio = 3.3 times).

Today the ratio is down to 1.6 times (which, if you adjust for the significantly higher US testing rates means that the difference is fast approaching the point where it is becoming statistically negligible).

And, clearly, for every week and every month in which the trend of the past few months - i.e., US per capita case numbers running well below EU case numbers - continues brings closer the point at which the US would actually have a lower total number of per capita cases.

Which just goes to show that looking solely at what is happening at a certain point in time - which you are doing - is flawed because it overlooks what is really happening on a relative trend basis.

As I said, it takes more than just few short months for the success of a response to a pandemic to become truly known.

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