COVID — U.S. Compared to World

​Sgt Joe Friday said "Just the facts ma'am." There continues to be misinformation about COVID data, implying the U.S. does not have a problem or that it has a problem commensurate with other countries. On the surface, a country with 4% of global population and 20% of global COVID deaths shows that the U.S. at a minimum has a worse problem than many countries.  All the factual reports I've read and listened to indicate the same, as do the COVID data, and they show that the U.S. problem is substantially worse than most other major countries.

U.S. problem is not commensurate with Europe. It came up again that U.S. COVID problem is commensurate with European countries. The facts are that U.S. daily deaths from COVID is currently 10 times the EU (worse than Spain, UK, and Italy), and new daily cases is 4 times the EU.  Also, of major countries, the U.S. is either the worst regarding current COVID data or in the top 3, and combined with that U.S. is the only major country that does not offer universal healthcare (to add to the number of unisured in the country, millions are losing healthcare due to unemployment). Although Spain, UK and Italy have higher per capita deaths, the U.S. daily per capita death rate from COVID is 5 times Spain, 25 times UK, and 6 times Italy. U.S. daily deaths per capita have been increasing or remaining steady over the last month, while rates for those three comparison countries have decreased.

Global Data Snapshot. A detailed snapshot from two global data sources is attached: Worldometer (international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers), and Our World in Data (collaborative efforts between researchers at the University of Oxford and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab). Both show essentially the same thing, but it is very difficult to look at this type of data so I did a ranking system and put in some other relevant information: whether a country is part of EU, UK, U.S., whether it is one of the major industrial countries, and whether it's in the top 10 countries, and whether the country has universal healthcare. I filtered the results only for major countries, but you can unfilter or unhide all the details.

No Evidence of COVID Data Inflation for Political Purposes. It also came up that people are inflating COVID data for political purposes. Evidence of that would be good to have because I find none. And similar to misinformation about voter fraud, evidence for a widespread problem (not just isolated problems) is important. The fact that George Floyd tested positive for COVID does not mean the hospital listed it as a COVID death. Possibly they did, but: a) Reuters said he "tested positive for the coronavirus, his autopsy showed, but the infection was not listed as a factor in his death," and b) even if the hospital reported it as a COVID death that does not discount the body of data collected and managed by CDC, Johns Hopkins, or the two global sources above.

Agreement on COVID Facts. This is representative of the continual battle to agree on basic facts. Tor, do you agree with the facts below:

1. The U.S. is in the top 3 worst major countries globally in terms of new daily cases and deaths per capita?
2. The U.S. is worse than any European country and the EU as a whole in terms of new daily cases and deaths per capita?
3. The U.S. is one of the worst major countries globally in terms of total COVID cases and deaths?

There should be no disagreement on facts, yet we spend so much time disputing facts that it clouds already challenging medical realities of COVID.  Hope you read this information.