Covid19 Country Comparisons

Example of how it was done right in another country: Singapore response

This is how Singapore is fighting the Corona Virus

WOW!

This is what a government that cares about its people looks like. pic.twitter.com/ExWhxltemM
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) March 10, 2020

Welcome Back to Germany. Now Take Your Free Virus Test.

The country’s capacity to make testing efficient, affordable and available has distinguished it. Now, to head off a potential second wave, it’s testing anyone returning from a “hot zone” on entry.

“I am very aware that this is an intrusion in personal freedom,” Jens Spahn, Germany’s health minister, said at a news conference Thursday. “But freedom always comes with responsibility for myself and for others.”

As Europe reopens, cases have begun ticking up nearly everywhere, to a greater or lesser extent, leaving countries in a constant, seesaw battle to tamp down outbreaks before they undo months of hard-won progress made during costly lockdowns this spring.

Unlike the United States or Britain, both of which allowed their public health agencies to keep tight control over standards for tests and discouraged private clinics, labs or companies from developing their own, Germany disseminated a blueprint for a test as soon as it had one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-test-travelers.html

Things the US has got wrong – and got right

The Unraveling of America

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era Never in our lives have we experienced such a global phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, all of humanity, informed by the unprecedented reach of digital technology, has come together, focused on the same existential threat, consumed by the same fears and uncertainties, eagerly anticipating the same, as yet unrealized, promises of medical science.

In a single season, civilization has been brought low by a microscopic parasite 10,000 times smaller than a grain of salt. COVID-19 attacks our physical bodies, but also the cultural foundations of our lives, the toolbox of community and connectivity that is for the human what claws and teeth represent to the tiger. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

How the pandemic defeated America https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/

Ten bucks left, no place to go: How the pandemic and a broken unemployment system are upending people’s lives https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coronavirus-unemployment-delays-dc/2020/08/01/50016264-c522-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html

The lost six weeks when US failed to contain virus

Infection date graphic country comparison

Coronavirus quickly spread around the world starting late last year, new genetic analysis shows

What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders

U.S. death toll reaches 100,000: The pandemic has exposed America’s dangerous divide — The Washington Post

Escape from Florida: My 2,400-km drive back to the sanity of Canada Stephen Maher: In Florida, the beaches were open, people filled bars, and many just couldn’t seem to grasp ‘why everyone is panicking’ https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/escape-from-florida-my-2400-km-drive-back-to-the-sanity-of-canada/

Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

Infection date graphic country comparison

COVID-19 testing rate by country