I found this data [0, 1] from the economist which does suggest that Western European countries really did mitigate the virus and continue to do so. Excess death

I found this data [0, 1] from the economist which does suggest that Western European countries really did mitigate the virus and continue to do so. Excess deaths are a more robust measure of the effects of the virus because they're unaffected by testing differences and idiosyncrasies between countries. I have no idea if there are any travel restrictions in place internally to the Schengen area right now but I wouldn't be surprised if the free movement in the US between areas with very good control over the virus and area where it went haywire was a factor in the current spikes. Hispanic people are greatly over represented in current coronavirus cases in SF [2], supposedly because they are more likely to be essential first-line workers, but I think also having to live in very cramped living situations (e.g. 5 people in a 2 bed apartment) is another factor. So in that case wealth inequality could be another contributing factor as to why cases are higher in the US than the rest of the world. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/health/coronavirus-hispanic-sf-spread/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/health/coronavirus-hispanic-s...