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> Canada got relatively lucky, timing the restrictions before the peak unlike so many other places. That's not luck, it's called competence. > U.S. overall ra

> Canada got relatively lucky, timing the restrictions before the peak unlike so many other places. That's not luck, it's called competence. > U.S. overall rates of COVID death are dramatically lower than the UK and Sweden Is 10% less than the 2 worst european countries really worth applauding? Also 10% isn't dramatic in my book. Average US death rate for the last 7 days is still 5 times higher than France for example. [Edit: this is bad metric, see comments below, my bad.] > people still frame it like the President is a bloody-handed murderer who gets off on watching people suffer. He willingly took decisions that clearly, scientifically cost the lives of many people to win some political points with his base. You can't possibly think that the crisis was handled completly optimally with the infos available at the time, and no other handling could have saved any more lives.

microcolonel 6y ago
> That's not luck, it's called competence. Our outbreak started later, and so did most countermeasures, for reasons that appear to be complete coincidence. > Is 10% less than the 2 worst european countries really worth applauding? Also 10% isn't dramatic in my book. Well, I could've compared Spain and Italy as well. Spain's outcomes seem like they may have a lot to do with vitamin D. > US death rate is still 5 times higher than France for example. Right now the rolling-average daily rate is about 3.8x higher in the U.S. than it is in France (which has been in a lockdown of a sort that would probably be illegal in the U.S.); but that's after ignoring the massive spike in France, almost a flat month of death rates more than 2x the U.S. peak (which didn't last as long). https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?time=2020-02-26..&country=FRA~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi... > He willingly took decisions that clearly, scientifically cost the lives of many people to win some political points with his base. Such as what? The President is not a dictator, he does not get to make most of the major decisions involved in an outbreak like this. Thanks to everyone scrambling to make things work, it seems that the standard of care was never significantly impacted by a lack of supplies, and none of the hospitals in the hotspot exceeded capacity. Furthermore, the states that most resembled the White House's recommendations have had better outcomes across the board. > You can't possibly think that the crisis was handled completly optimally with the infos available at the time, and no other handling could have saved any more lives. That is a completely unrelated claim, that nobody is making. Hindsight is always 20-20. I think that it would have been politically infeasible to do what Taiwan did for all of North America.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  > Our outbreak started later, and so did most countermeasures, for reasons that appear to be complete coincidence. Exactly what new information was discovered in the ~1-2 weeks gap between US and Canada outbreaks that led Canada to start lockdown very early while the US started very late? spoiler: none. One government and it's provinces decided to follow common sense/scientific advices, while the other did not. > Well, I could've compared Spain and Italy as well. Spain's outcomes seem like they may have a lot to do with vitamin D. You could have and you would have seen that they have successfully bent the curve to almost no new cases unlike the US. Do you think people in Florida and Texas lack vitamin D? If not how come cases are spiking again there? > Such as what? The President is not a dictator, he does not get to make most of the major decisions involved in an outbreak like this Such as not spending weeks trying to convince americans that this virus was a fake news from the left? Or such as using his political weight to pressure states into going into lockdown earlier/longer? Or maybe not vehemently refusing to wear a mask to not appear weak, leading to all of it's base doing the same? > Hindsight is always 20-20. I did very specifically say "with the infos available at the time".
vonmoltke 6y ago
> Is 10% less than the 2 worst european countries really worth applauding? Also 10% isn't dramatic in my book. Average US death rate for the last 7 days is still 5 times higher than France for example. How are you calculating this? Comparing the death rates for these four countries one would need to alter the numbers significantly to get the US at 5x France and the UK/Sweden at >5x France: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?tab=chart&country=USA~FRA~GBR~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-mi... Note: I hope this chart loads. The page is giving me a JS exception so I could only see the chart on the main page (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths). If it doesn't load, scroll down the main page to "Total confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people" and edit the chart to add those four curves.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  > How are you calculating this? You are looking at the entire timespan while I said "Average for the last 7 days". But I agree that this metric is not a good indicator of anything given the lag between when the epidemy started in Europe vs US. My mistake on that.
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    Sorry, I missed that you had specified 7 days. I was looking at the post you were responding to, which was referencing overall death rate.

microcolonel 6y ago

> That's not luck, it's called competence. Our outbreak started later, and so did most countermeasures, for reasons that appear to be complete coincidence. > Is 10% less than the 2 worst european countries really worth applauding? Also 10% isn't dramatic in my book. Well, I could've compared Spain and Italy as well. Spain's outcomes seem like they may have a lot to do with vitamin D. > US death rate is still 5 times higher than France for example. Right now the rolling-average daily rate is about 3.8x higher in the U.S. than it is in France (which has been in a lockdown of a sort that would probably be illegal in the U.S.); but that's after ignoring the massive spike in France, almost a flat month of death rates more than 2x the U.S. peak (which didn't last as long). https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?time=2020-02-26..&country=FRA~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi... > He willingly took decisions that clearly, scientifically cost the lives of many people to win some political points with his base. Such as what? The President is not a dictator, he does not get to make most of the major decisions involved in an outbreak like this. Thanks to everyone scrambling to make things work, it seems that the standard of care was never significantly impacted by a lack of supplies, and none of the hospitals in the hotspot exceeded capacity. Furthermore, the states that most resembled the White House's recommendations have had better outcomes across the board. > You can't possibly think that the crisis was handled completly optimally with the infos available at the time, and no other handling could have saved any more lives. That is a completely unrelated claim, that nobody is making. Hindsight is always 20-20. I think that it would have been politically infeasible to do what Taiwan did for all of North America.

Voloskaya 6y ago
> Our outbreak started later, and so did most countermeasures, for reasons that appear to be complete coincidence. Exactly what new information was discovered in the ~1-2 weeks gap between US and Canada outbreaks that led Canada to start lockdown very early while the US started very late? spoiler: none. One government and it's provinces decided to follow common sense/scientific advices, while the other did not. > Well, I could've compared Spain and Italy as well. Spain's outcomes seem like they may have a lot to do with vitamin D. You could have and you would have seen that they have successfully bent the curve to almost no new cases unlike the US. Do you think people in Florida and Texas lack vitamin D? If not how come cases are spiking again there? > Such as what? The President is not a dictator, he does not get to make most of the major decisions involved in an outbreak like this Such as not spending weeks trying to convince americans that this virus was a fake news from the left? Or such as using his political weight to pressure states into going into lockdown earlier/longer? Or maybe not vehemently refusing to wear a mask to not appear weak, leading to all of it's base doing the same? > Hindsight is always 20-20. I did very specifically say "with the infos available at the time".

vonmoltke 6y ago

> Is 10% less than the 2 worst european countries really worth applauding? Also 10% isn't dramatic in my book. Average US death rate for the last 7 days is still 5 times higher than France for example. How are you calculating this? Comparing the death rates for these four countries one would need to alter the numbers significantly to get the US at 5x France and the UK/Sweden at >5x France: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?tab=chart&country=USA~FRA~GBR~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-mi... Note: I hope this chart loads. The page is giving me a JS exception so I could only see the chart on the main page (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths). If it doesn't load, scroll down the main page to "Total confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people" and edit the chart to add those four curves.

Voloskaya 6y ago
> How are you calculating this? You are looking at the entire timespan while I said "Average for the last 7 days". But I agree that this metric is not a good indicator of anything given the lag between when the epidemy started in Europe vs US. My mistake on that.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  Sorry, I missed that you had specified 7 days. I was looking at the post you were responding to, which was referencing overall death rate.