6 ms·

A better question from everyone outside the US: what the flying f is with the huuuuuge (accounting for estimated no. of infected and other factors) number of de

by nnq 6y ago

A better question from everyone outside the US: what the flying f is with the huuuuuge (accounting for estimated no. of infected and other factors) number of deaths in the USA??!!?! I mean, the US is (a) a developed country with modern health-care, (b) there is no common 'old parents living in same home with some of the adult children' situation you have in Italy + Eastern Europe, (c) there are no norms of common physical contact like 'kissing on meeting' (see France, Italy, northern Romania etc.), (d) the population is generally very dispersed (compare US density with areas of Western Europe or China) and (e) there is prevalent use of personal cars instead of public transport (as opposed to Western Europe and China, again), which should further diminish transmission. US stats look worrying for everyone on Earth, it almost looks like a wild difference in viral strains or some other important but unknown factor.

mparramon 6y ago
Obesity?
Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Whilst I agree the USA has a lower population density than most of the world it is not exactly true. This figure assumes everyone is equally spread out. However many inhabitants of the USA live in cities therefore population density is much higher. The same thing happens in Spain which goes from one of the least dense countries in Europe to one of the most dense looking at it in these different ways. The USA has a large population and I assume this is why you think the numbers are huge. Deaths per thousand are around a half of the UK and less than a third of Italy and Spain. In not very worried by US stats they seem fairly similar to elsewhere in the world. What I'm worried about is that it seems like American politicians, media, people think they are much further along infection than they are. Edit - typo
- sharatvir 6y ago
  Not only is the population large, a lot of people are large as well. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular health are huge factors in covid-19 mortality.
vidanay 6y ago
Because societal norms in the US dictate that individualism takes priority over communalism no matter what. Source: am American
bsaul 6y ago
Since the very beginning, everyone expected the US to have a very high percentage of death (remember discussing that my friends even before the US had a single casuality). Hypertension and diabetes were listed as have a lot of impact of the mortality rates, and the general extremely bad health of the american population, coupled with the lack of a quality public health system made it the perfect target. That, plus more political issues, such as not being able to enforce curfew easily, a general mistrust in representatives, and a president that remained convinced it wasn't such a big deal for a very long time. All in all, i think the number remain quite low compared to the worst case scenario.
rsynnott 6y ago
The US has a low rate of testing, was late to impose lockdowns (mostly; a few states were fairly proactive), and is bad at enforcing them (again, mostly). Having a leader who spent the first few weeks of the crisis on TV denying there was a problem, _while people were already dying in the US_, probably didn't help; most countries don't have that. > some other important but unknown factor The important factor is probably just very poor crisis management. US death rates aren't _that_ high, anyway; on paper they're low to medium vs Europe, though given that the rate of testing is lower than almost anywhere in Western Europe that's probably understated.
empath75 6y ago
Or we had a wildly incompetent response from the federal government. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-coverup.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump...
patrickaljord 6y ago
> A better question from everyone outside the US: what the flying f is with the huuuuuge (accounting for estimated no. of infected and other factors) number of deaths in the USA??!!? That's only true if you don't know what "per capita" means. So far the US has 172 death per 1M population. That's better than other countries with supposedly better healthcare including: - Belgium - France - Spain - Italy - UK - Netherlands - Sweden - Ireland - Switzerland And many more. > US stats look worrying for everyone on Earth I'm more worried about people's inability to understand the difference between stats and absolute numbers specially on this site where we're supposed to know better.
- saalweachter 6y ago
  NYC is currently at 1462 deaths per million.
  - patrickaljord 6y ago
    The whole country of Spain is at 510 deaths per million. How high do you think their biggest hot spot is?
    - interestica 6y ago
      I think the point is that treating the USA as some sort of unified region for statistical purposes is in itself problematic.
      - saalweachter 6y ago
        The thing that worries me about NYC statistics is that they're awful, and we now have serum tests that indicate that -- at best -- we're about 1/3 of the way through. (Current serum tests indicate 20-25% of NYC has caught it, current R0 estimates indicate that 70-85% would need to catch it for it to burn itself out without any additional measures.) This puts reasonable estimates of "how bad can it get?" at north of 5000 deaths per million, if we don't properly contain it. This, really, is the new information we're getting out of US numbers.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
patall 6y ago
What I always think of if I hear this is the tallness paradox between Europe and USA. When controlling for ethnicity, the modern white person from the US is on average about 1.5 inches (4 cm) shorter than the average person from the EU. As far as I know its uncertain why exactly this is (american used to be taller until mid of the last century) but the usual suspect is class inequality the lets to poorer sanitation for poorer people which in turn are also more likely to infect richer people which leads to less growth in adolescents. But ultimately, the cause of this phenomenon in not known.
elorant 6y ago
Well US has an obesity problem and this is considered to worsen Covid effects.
greendesk 6y ago
There are differences in vaccine regimen too, which lead to be a statistically significant factor. (edit) The first point is in reference to the BCG hypothesis, search at MedRHiv for similar entries such as: Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19" In addition to early travel exposure, common travelling, social factors-vs-car culture, obesity and diabetes, etc. Within Europe, the BCG hypothesis seems a differentiating factor, though further studies are necessary. The reason for the effect of the vaccine are not currently known.
thehappypm 6y ago
Compare the US to the EU as a whole and you’ll see that the two are doing pretty similarly.

by nnq 6y ago

mparramon 6y ago

Obesity?

Johnjonjoan 6y ago

Whilst I agree the USA has a lower population density than most of the world it is not exactly true. This figure assumes everyone is equally spread out. However many inhabitants of the USA live in cities therefore population density is much higher. The same thing happens in Spain which goes from one of the least dense countries in Europe to one of the most dense looking at it in these different ways. The USA has a large population and I assume this is why you think the numbers are huge. Deaths per thousand are around a half of the UK and less than a third of Italy and Spain. In not very worried by US stats they seem fairly similar to elsewhere in the world. What I'm worried about is that it seems like American politicians, media, people think they are much further along infection than they are. Edit - typo

sharatvir 6y ago
Not only is the population large, a lot of people are large as well. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular health are huge factors in covid-19 mortality.

vidanay 6y ago

Because societal norms in the US dictate that individualism takes priority over communalism no matter what. Source: am American

bsaul 6y ago

Since the very beginning, everyone expected the US to have a very high percentage of death (remember discussing that my friends even before the US had a single casuality). Hypertension and diabetes were listed as have a lot of impact of the mortality rates, and the general extremely bad health of the american population, coupled with the lack of a quality public health system made it the perfect target. That, plus more political issues, such as not being able to enforce curfew easily, a general mistrust in representatives, and a president that remained convinced it wasn't such a big deal for a very long time. All in all, i think the number remain quite low compared to the worst case scenario.

rsynnott 6y ago

The US has a low rate of testing, was late to impose lockdowns (mostly; a few states were fairly proactive), and is bad at enforcing them (again, mostly). Having a leader who spent the first few weeks of the crisis on TV denying there was a problem, _while people were already dying in the US_, probably didn't help; most countries don't have that. > some other important but unknown factor The important factor is probably just very poor crisis management. US death rates aren't _that_ high, anyway; on paper they're low to medium vs Europe, though given that the rate of testing is lower than almost anywhere in Western Europe that's probably understated.

empath75 6y ago

Or we had a wildly incompetent response from the federal government. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-coverup.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump...

patrickaljord 6y ago

> A better question from everyone outside the US: what the flying f is with the huuuuuge (accounting for estimated no. of infected and other factors) number of deaths in the USA??!!? That's only true if you don't know what "per capita" means. So far the US has 172 death per 1M population. That's better than other countries with supposedly better healthcare including: - Belgium - France - Spain - Italy - UK - Netherlands - Sweden - Ireland - Switzerland And many more. > US stats look worrying for everyone on Earth I'm more worried about people's inability to understand the difference between stats and absolute numbers specially on this site where we're supposed to know better.

saalweachter 6y ago
NYC is currently at 1462 deaths per million.
- patrickaljord 6y ago
  The whole country of Spain is at 510 deaths per million. How high do you think their biggest hot spot is?
  - interestica 6y ago
    I think the point is that treating the USA as some sort of unified region for statistical purposes is in itself problematic.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      The thing that worries me about NYC statistics is that they're awful, and we now have serum tests that indicate that -- at best -- we're about 1/3 of the way through. (Current serum tests indicate 20-25% of NYC has caught it, current R0 estimates indicate that 70-85% would need to catch it for it to burn itself out without any additional measures.) This puts reasonable estimates of "how bad can it get?" at north of 5000 deaths per million, if we don't properly contain it. This, really, is the new information we're getting out of US numbers.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

patall 6y ago

What I always think of if I hear this is the tallness paradox between Europe and USA. When controlling for ethnicity, the modern white person from the US is on average about 1.5 inches (4 cm) shorter than the average person from the EU. As far as I know its uncertain why exactly this is (american used to be taller until mid of the last century) but the usual suspect is class inequality the lets to poorer sanitation for poorer people which in turn are also more likely to infect richer people which leads to less growth in adolescents. But ultimately, the cause of this phenomenon in not known.

elorant 6y ago

Well US has an obesity problem and this is considered to worsen Covid effects.

greendesk 6y ago

There are differences in vaccine regimen too, which lead to be a statistically significant factor. (edit) The first point is in reference to the BCG hypothesis, search at MedRHiv for similar entries such as: Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19" In addition to early travel exposure, common travelling, social factors-vs-car culture, obesity and diabetes, etc. Within Europe, the BCG hypothesis seems a differentiating factor, though further studies are necessary. The reason for the effect of the vaccine are not currently known.

thehappypm 6y ago

Compare the US to the EU as a whole and you’ll see that the two are doing pretty similarly.