(05-23-2020, 02:38 AM)Chas Wrote:(05-22-2020, 08:03 PM)Deesse23 Wrote: tl;dr
I think the USs reaction to SARS-CoV2 is mixed. Not too bad, but not stellar either, especially considering the early warning time it had from looking at the outbreak in Europe (Italy). It may hve flattened the peak better than Italy for example. The (near) future will however be crucial, since the US seems to want to open up while the virus isnt even properly contained, and summing up over time the US might suffer more than Italy etc in the long run.
Completely agree with Mr. Greene
The U.S. has vastly more uninhabited land than those three countries and the population is 83% urban, so there isn't a huge disparity in effective population density.
As far as being useful, the number of deaths relative to population and the rate relative to infections measure two completely different things. The former is a measure of effectiveness in prevention, the latter a measure of treatment effectiveness.
Comparing to the entirety of the US is misleading as the outbreak was concentrated on New York which has recorded over 23,000 deaths alone, If you add New Jersey the total is ~equal to the UK though that's just the direct deaths whilst the UK total includes all possibles.
The US had begun to plateau but by falsely declaring the US was past the peak infections are increasing across the bulk of the US. The chances of getting an effective lockdown in the US now seem remote.
