As the coronavirus lockdown ends (for now) …

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The chart above, via Kevin Drum, shows that the United States has gotten off fairly lightly during the coronavirus pandemic, compared to other Western countries.

The USA has the most total deaths because it has the largest population, but the death rate is the key measure.  The USA is a big country.  Some parts of it are relatively safe and some aren’t, but overall things aren’t as bad as they might be—at least not yet.

 

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The chart above, also by Kevin Drum, shows that the number of new deaths from the coronavirus is tapering off in Western countries.

As the lockdowns end, the death rates will probably rise again—hopefully not to their previous peak.  If they don’t rise, a lot of what epidemiologists have been telling us about contagion is wrong.  I expect we’ll learn the epidemiologists were right.

I don’t see any point in noting coronavirus deaths on a day-to-day basis on this blog.  Kevin Drum, Ian Welsh and the Financial Times to a good job of tracking these figures, and I don’t have much of anything to add.

In the months and years to come, we’ll see which nations and cities dealt with the pandemic effectively and which did not.  We’ll see what worked and what did not.

There will be valuable lessons in all this.  Hopefully my government and other governments will be willing to learn them.

Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19