HOW IS AMERICA DOING IN THE BATTLE AGAINST CORONAVIRUS?

How is the USA doing in the battle against the Coronavirus? To hear the news media, we’re doing just awful. If you look at the website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?%20#countries it sure looks like we’re doing a slop job. We’ve got more cases than any other country, and we’ve had more deaths than any other country. We’ve really fumbled the ball on this thing. Or have we? One statistic that the chart on the Worldometers website doesn’t include is the population of each country. Another is the rate of death per 100,000 population. Another statistic is the percentage of deaths per number of infected. Let’s look at the top six countries on Worldometers’ chart.

First off, we notice that the top six countries for infections are America and five Western European countries. These countries are some of the most open countries in the world, and we can expect that infections will cross their borders and spread easily in the absence of drastic measures not in keeping with traditional Western freedom. Being averse to surrendering freedom, all these countries were slow to take those drastic measures, and therefore they’ve all got infection totals at 93,000 or more (as of April 14, 2020). This is one of the consequences of living in an open society.

But which of these countries has the worst problem with Coronavirus? Let’s look at the raw numbers.

Ranking the countries by number of cases (as of April 14), we get this array:

Country	Cases
[1] USA	588,466
[2] Spain	172,541
[3] Italy	159,616
[4] France	136,779
[5] Germany	130,434
[6] United Kingdom	93,873

It doesn’t look good for the USA, does it?

Now let’s rank them by number of deaths:

Country	Cases	Deaths
[1] USA	588,466	23,711
[2] Italy	159,616	20,465
[3] Spain	172,541	18,056
[4] France	136,779	14,967
[5] United Kingdom	93,873	12,107
[6] Germany	130,434	3,220

There are some changes in the order, but the USA is still number one. Doesn’t look good, does it?

But we should look at a more revealing statistic than mere raw numbers. What percentage of the population have contracted Coronavirus? (Populations were determined by reference to that infallible source of truth, Google):

Country	Population	Cases	Percent Infected
[1] Spain	46,940,000	172,541	0.367%
[2] Italy	60,360,000	159,616	0.264%
[3] France	66,990,000	136,779	0.204%
[4] USA	328,200,000	588,466	0.179%
[5] Germany	83,020,000	130,434	0.157%
[6] United Kingdom	66,650,000	93,873	0.141%

The rankings change drastically, and by this measure the USA doesn’t look so bad. We’ve dropped to fourth.

Of the confirmed cases, how many patients have died (as of April 14)?

Country	Cases	Deaths	Percent deaths
[1] United Kingdom	93,873	12,107	13%
[2] Italy	159,616	20,465	13%
[3] France	136,779	14,967	11%
[4] Spain	172,541	18,056	10%
[5] USA	588,466	23,711	4%
[6] Germany	130,434	3,220	2%

Another shakeup in the rankings, and America drops to number five. The much-maligned medical system of the United States seems to be doing a pretty good job of saving the lives of confirmed Coronavirus patients.

Last, let’s look at deaths per 100,000 population:

Country	Population	Deaths	Deaths per 100K
[1] Spain	46,940,000	18,056	38
[2] Italy	60,360,000	20,465	34
[3] France	66,990,000	14,967	22
[4] United Kingdom	66,650,000	12,107	18
[5] USA	328,200,000	23,711	7
[6] Germany	83,020,000	3,220	4

Once again, only Germany is doing better than the USA in deaths per 100,000 population.

Of course, as Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” and the pandemic is far from over; but so far it doesn’t look to me as though the USA is doing as awful a job containing the Coronavirus as many in the media would have us believe.