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Europe has twice the population of the United States. Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day. Europe can relax because they worked hard
by svnpenn 6y ago
Europe has twice the population of the United States.
Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day.
Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. The US never did that, most states (like my home state of Texas) did a half-assed closing for 3 weeks, so the numbers never really got under control.
- csomar 6y agoThe US is doing way more testing than most of the populous countries in the EU.
- u801e 6y agoWhat's the percentage of positive test results out of all test results in the US vs most of the populous countries in Europe?
- FabHK 6y agoHigher. US positive rate is 6.9%, Europe is mostly quite a bit lower (Austria 2.5%, Belgium 3%, France 2.4%, Germany 0.9%, Italy 1.9%, Scandinavia <1% except Sweden 3.5%, UK 0.7%) except Spain (7.2%) and Croatia (10.3%). https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing
- djsumdog 6y agoIt varied and we're seeing more cases in the EU coming out of the lockdown. Hell, NZ went for total elimination and they got more cases (possibly due to freight?) When this is over, I bet the entire planet will have rates similar to Sweden. My theory is lockdowns delay the inevitable. We should protect the most at risk (95% of fatalities in the US are ages 55+), but we also need to realize there is no way to really stop a virus in circulation. I wrote a while back about how we just need to come to accept our life expectancy is just lower now: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-honor/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...
- rootusrootus 6y ago> there is no way to really stop a virus in circulation Sure there is, a vaccine.
- djsumdog 6y agoIt takes 5 to 10 years to create a safe and effective vaccine. Look to the 1970s and Swing Flu to see an example of a failed vaccine. It is absolutely insane that anyone is seriously considering we can make a safe vaccine for this in less than a year. Pharmaceutical companies have never made a successful vaccines for coronaviruses before. I've heard the argument, "Well we have more people working on it." If you hire nine women, you can't make a baby in a month. There is no way, no matter how much money you throw at it, to safely do 5~10 years worth of testing in less than a year.
- achenatx 6y agoThe SARS vaccine was likely successful. SARS died out and so the vaccine was never fully challenged in a pandemic. But as far as I know antibodies lasted a long time.
- djsumdog 6y agoNo they didn't. SARS1 and MERS vaccines had a ton of problems, such as Imuenopathic responses and Immune Enhancement syndrome. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/ https://www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8218 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8218
- HPsquared 6y agoIndeed, you'd think in HN of all places, everyone should be familiar with the concept of the "mythical man month".
- rootusrootus 6y agoYou just replied to a strawman argument made by someone you seem to agree with. Why?
- thelastname 6y agoI don't know but perhaps recent social unrest could have something to do with that? Europe is getting tired right now, and I'm not talking about economies but about people. You can't lock people for months and expect them to to obey indefinitely. It's unsustainable. It's more reasonable to apply some proportional restrictions than to lock everything down. Eg. limit users of a gym and require disinfection. That's how a legal state should work: effective and proportional restrictions, rest is a human right.
- roywiggins 6y agoNYC saw substantial social unrest and didn't see any COVID spikes; marches and demonstrations have extended for months and the test positivity rate remains low. I believe it's the decision not to reopen indoor dining and bars, and to mandate masks, that saved NYC the resurgence that the rest of the country has seen. You absolutely can control COVID even during the current period of social unrest; the US largely chose not to. COVID doesn't seem to like to spread that much during largely masked, outdoor protests. It loves to spread in bars and parties. School is opening soon, so things will probably get worse, but nevertheless: NYC demonstrates that in an American context, COVID can still be controlled pretty well. (NYC government has a lot to answer for w/r/t the initial response in March, but that's not the same issue)
- thelastname 6y agoThat would provide masks effectiveness quite well. I hope we(or our governments) all may learn on others experiences.
- vondur 6y agoI've been reading how the cases in France are rising enough where the government is considering a second lockdown.
- polote 6y agoNot yet, for now they have just made the mask mandotary almost everywhere. People will not accept a second lockdown
- vondur 6y agoI wonder how well people would respond to another lockdown. As you can see here in the US people are not taking it well. It also appears that Covid cases are spiking in Spain and Germany as well as France. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/19/903967293/spain-france-and-germany-report-most-coronavirus-cases-since-their-lockdowns https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
- polote 6y ago> Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day. You can't compare cases
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cm2187 6y agoIt's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there. I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a similar story a couple of months ago). Also the evolution of deaths in Sweden followed the same shape and timing than all the other european countries who locked down, suggesting the peak had more to do with the natural evolution of the infection than as a result of a lockdown. And as far as I know, the WHO does not support lockdowns. I suppose things like how well care homes were protected probably mattered a lot more.
- rconti 6y agoSecond or third earliest, and there was early community spread in NY, when CA was locking down and NY was ignoring it for a week or two. And it's home to the densest city. And I think it's uncontroversial that CA lockdowns helped.
- mandeepj 6y ago> WHO does not support lockdowns. WHO is corrupt, and has been politicized. They were also against masks at the beginning, and also said COVID does not transmit from human to human.
- treeman79 6y agoSaw the movie clue a couple months ago. It shocked me how bad WHO reputation was back then. 1985. Professor Plum works for the WHO. —- Miss Scarlet : I hardly think it will enhance your reputation at the U.N. Professor Plum, if it's revealed that you have been implicated not only in adultery with one of your patients, but in her death and the deaths of five other people. Professor Plum : You don't know what kind of people they have at the U.N., I might go up in their estimation.
- showdeadtest 6y ago
- eanzenberg 6y agoEU has twice the population? Are you including Russia?
- svnpenn 6y agoDo you not know how to do even the most cursory internet search? > Population 746,419,440 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe > Population 328,239,523 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
- DuskStar 6y agoEU population is 446 million, so evidently "yes, you were including Russia".
- svnpenn 6y agoWhat is wrong with you? My first comment says EUROPE, not EU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24216964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24216964 and EUROPE population is 746 million, as I already said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
- DuskStar 6y agoRight, including Russia.
- svnpenn 6y agook? Nothing I said was wrong. I never said "EU", and I never said "EU includes Russia", and I never said "Europe doesnt include Russia". So what is your point? Just throwing out random facts? And even if you just talk about EU, its still embarassing. EU still has 35% higher population than the US, while the US has 4 times the daily cases.
- RandomBacon 6y ago
- treeman79 6y agoWhat’s the testing rate? What’s the accuracy of the tests?
- ekianjo 6y ago> Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. Where do you see that COVID19 is over? > under control A very steep second wave of infection is, to me, the opposite of "under control". Do you actually check data? https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr Also, just routinely mentioning: "No country knows the total number of people infected with COVID-19. All we know is the infection status of those who have been tested." https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing Also, the US tests about twice more (per thousand people) vs the rates of testing in Europe, so you should expect at least 2x more cases discovered in the US just by this mere fact. Most of Europe also has only a "symptoms-based" testing policy, while the US also has an "asymptomic" testing policy.
- rockinghigh 6y agoIt's under control from a death perspective. Daily deaths number have been in the 0-20 range for 2+ months in France. The numbers are 100x higher in the US (500-1500/day) over the same period with 5 times the population.
- esrauch 6y agoI'm curious about the death rates in the European countries on your WHO link; both France and Spain have clear resurgence in cases but very near zero deaths. Did they actually reduce the morbidity by 100x, or is there some other fundamental difference?
- refurb 6y agoThe most vulnerable died and now it's younger, less vulnerable people being infected and we have safety measures to protect the remaining vulnerable populations? It will be interesting to see the death rate once this is all over. It might be much lower and the initial numbers were skewed by cases in the elderly.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoMorbidity has definitely reduced some, both because testing is now covering non-severe cases and because treatment protocols have improved. But a major factor is that deaths have consistently been a lagging indicator for this disease, both because the progression is quite long and because the most active spreaders tend to be younger and healthier. It's likely that they'll see a matching resurgence in deaths over the next few weeks, as other areas of the world with case surges have consistently seen.
- bluedino 6y agoNow compare individual states in the US to individual countries in Europe