[pjc50]

Surprisingly, it's many middle-income countries in southeast Asia that have done very well at controlling the virus without a vaccine.

The worst hit places per https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... seem to be Latin American; Mexico, Peru, Ecuador.

It is possible that Africa simply lacks the data.

[disgruntledphd2]

So, the current working theory about Africa is that they have really good contact-tracing systems (because they still have lots of infectious diseases) and people comply more with infection control measures (because they still have infectious diseases).

The trouble with the developed world is that public health has been so successful that people appear to have forgotten why we need it.

[dredmorbius]

Among other factors, South America seems to show the strong winter seasonality pattern typical of coronavirus infections (not just SARS-CoV2). Much of Africa does not (the continent spans northern and southern hemispheres to a greater degree, and has far more population in a tropical belt), though South Africa seems to.

See: https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nrevss/coronavirus/natl-tre...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/peru

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri...

[hajile]

The majority of people in South America are partially or mostly of American Indian descent. It's been generally known for a long time that American Indians are hit harder by the flu. Some research papers on covid seem to indicate a similar trend. As such, it may not be so surprising to see worse numbers in a continent of people genetically susceptible to the disease.

Africa is also pretty easy. Median age in Africa is 19.7. Median age in Europe is 42.5. Median age in the US is 37.9. We know that young people are very unlikely to die from covid, so a place that skews so young would have fewer deaths.

Likewise, given the large number of much more lethal diseases in Africa combined with young age and poor medical facilities, people with preexisting conditions are much less common and are much more likely to be killed by other, more lethal diseases.

[postalrat]

The average age of people in many of those areas is much lower than the united states or europe. I think a lot people are getting covid but not dying.

[Aperocky]

The worst hit place right now is the ~United States of America.~ West.

It's amusing, if not hugely disappointing at the same time.

[esja]

This is not correct. If you adjust for population size, most of highly-developed Europe is doing much worse than the USA right now. That includes Germany, Switzerland, etc.

[pedrocr]

The US has had 34k cases and 760 deaths per million people. Germany has had 10k cases and 152 deaths per million people. So Germany has done 3 to 5 times better than the US so far. The only Western European country that has clearly worse numbers than the US is Belgium and in part that may be because they have a much broader definition of deaths with COVID19.

Data from here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[dwaltrip]

France and Spain have very similar numbers to the US, and the UK and Italy are fairly close as well.

[pedrocr]

That doesn't contradict anything I've said or support what I was replying to.

[buzzerbetrayed]

But it does show that you cherry-picked data that didn't give the full story. The follow up comment only made things more clear, which I think you should appreciate.

[dwaltrip]

I agree, I just wanted to make it extra clear for others how several large European countries seem to have numbers similar to the US (Ironically... I could have phrased it in a way that made that more clear to you.)

It seems to me that all remaining levels and sub-sectors of American society have responded reasonably competently, despite the grossly negligent and incompetent response (potentially even criminal?) from the administration.

[esja]

Aperocky said "right now". And right now, the situation in Europe is objectively worse than the USA.

[pedrocr]

How do you figure that? Taking the example of Germany, their numbers of new cases and new deaths from the same source are ~2x less than the US per population. By what metric is Germany doing much worse than the USA right now?

[esja]

Germany is basically the best case for Europe and had 199 deaths today, with a quarter the population of the US (who had 485 deaths).

* 506 deaths in France (a fifth of the US population) * 213 in the UK (equiv. to 1000/day in the US) * Switzerland tracking at 100 deaths a day, equivalent to over 4000/day in the US * 162 deaths in Czechia, equiv. to 5346/day in the US

Look it up yourself:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/switzerlan... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/czech-repu...

[dredmorbius]

False.

At this writing, Europe as a whole has a population of 747.8 million, and 14.1 million COVID-19 cases, for a population-adjusted rate of 18,900 per million.

The US incidence rate is 34,400/1M, 182% of Europe's.

For mortality, EU: 434/1M US: 760/1M.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/europe-popula...

[esja]

It's not false at all. The key words are "right now". You are including numbers from months ago.

[dredmorbius]

EU has 8.57m active cases for a 11,500/1M active case rate.

US has 4.23m active cases, for 12,800/1M active case rate.

Note that Spain, UK, Netherlands, and Sweden don't report on active or recovered cases. Nor does the US state of Oregon.

The margin is much thinner, though reported data still give the edge to the EU. Given that Spain and the UK represent large current EU outbreaks, that margin could shift to the advantage of the US.

I'll note that US cases are continuing to grow largely unhindered whilst several EU outbreaks (notably France) may have peaked as lockdowns' impacts are seen.

[esja]

Europes daily deaths per head of population are currently much higher than the US. See my comment & links above.

[esja]

Why the downvotes? This is a factual description of the current situation in Europe, i.e. what is happening right now.