I have listened to pundits and medical experts on networks from PBS to DW speak at length on the failures of America to adequately deal with the pandemic in comparison with European countries. Most recently, one of these sources cited Americas high fatality numbers as compared to other western European countries and specifically criticized the American system of states and federalism as presenting an unworkable patchwork of policies. One cited the per capita death rate as the highest of all. In both cases the point is misleading.
The direct nation to nation comparison of the US and specific European countries, without any differentiation as to their economic condition or level of population, is the most invidious of the two assertions. Setting aside concerns about how the counting is done, America, taken as one undifferentiated mass, does look worse in absolute numbers, but such one-to-one comparison commits the classic error of contrasting apples to oranges.
To make a meaningful comparison, we need to construct a proper basis by looking at countries that are similar in terms of economic organization and development. Then we have to combine those into a unit of population similar to the US. When that is done the figures don’t look all that different.
The US has a population at roughly 330 million people. Of the most advanced economies comparable in development, none of the western European countries separately comes anywhere close to that figure, but if we cobble together what could be called the big five, we can arrive at a unit that is acceptably close:
Germany : 83 million
UK: 68 million
France: 65 million
Italy: 60 million
Spain: 47 million
Total: 323 million
Now let us look at each country’s separate COVID death numbers:
US: 542,000
And each of the big five European countries:
Germany: 75,000
UK: 126,000
France: 92,305
Spain: 72,900
Italy: 105,000
Total: 471,205
If one then runs the per capita number that gives results for the US at approximately .0016 and for the European big five, .0014, a difference of only .0002. And now consider that in the US, the rate is slowing as we approach herd immunity through natural exposure and vaccination. Europe is again on the increase and has significantly botched its vaccine delivery. This doesn’t speak particularly well for the central administration in Brussels.
As for the per capita rate, the UK still has that record at, .0018 despite very severe lockdowns. New York has one of the highest rates in the US at .0025, and it was one of the sates with comparably severe lockdown policies.
From the numbers, it is hard to be happy with any country’s performance, but they do not indicate a failure of federalism. As we approach the end of the pandemic, there will be plenty of data to run through, but I suspect the more centralized forms of command and control will leave a lot to be desired. I for one would not advise putting all our apples in one basket—nor our oranges for that matter!
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Mar 26 2021 at 12:58pm
The UK aside, why have all the EU countries failed dismally in rolling out COVID-19 vaccines?
BC
Mar 26 2021 at 3:46pm
My understanding is that the EU didn’t prioritize rapid rollout of the vaccines. Instead, they wanted to make sure that Big Pharma didn’t profit “unfairly”. The EU haggled more on price and was reluctant to pre-commit to purchasing vaccines in case they didn’t make it through trial. As a result the EU has not secured as much early supply as the US. They may have succeeded though in their higher priority of limiting Big Pharma’s profits.
Fazal Majid
Mar 26 2021 at 5:24pm
It’s almost as if airborne pandemics are quicker to spread in very densely populated urban areas like New York and London. Who could have predicted that?
Andre
Mar 26 2021 at 10:33pm
An even easier prediction is that if you take the people actually vulnerable to this disease, then force infected people into their midst, you are optimizing for death. Hence NY, NJ, etc.
robc
Mar 27 2021 at 10:27am
It even explains Sweden, without the force part. Sweden has large nursing homes, and that is where their deaths concentrated. Norway has small disperse nursing homes, so you couldnt get widespread outbreaks in the most vulnerable population.
Hartmut Kliemt
Mar 26 2021 at 6:33pm
Well done Hans. Actually there is another similarity between the US and the German discussion: the Germans lament also about the patchwork of different policies of German states. The German states have much less autonomy than those of the US. Yet in case of Covid 19 there is some autonomy left. This (along with the German courts) stands in the way of “centralized covidocracy”. Instead of welcoming this as one of those constitutional constraints that proved their metal so-well in case of recent US history the Germans think of it as a failure. Yet, the real failure, of course, is not to take the Swedish example more seriously. Sweden is the real benchmark case since it has not gone for lockdowns but for a kind of soft management of the crisis. The Swedish morbidity and mortality rates are not better than those of otherwise comparable countries yet the Swedes did not pay such a high price for keeping the pandemic reasonably under control and will reach an endemic state of it in all likelihood as soon as the rest of us.
While we shoot ourselves in our feet the US gets shots into arms admirably!
Linda Seebach
Mar 26 2021 at 11:09pm
There is evidence that the virus can be spread on air currents created by air conditioning.
If you look at the graphs (http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/) for new deaths it’s obvious that the United States had a summer peak that is lacking in the European Union.
Within the United States, that summer peak is principally in Sunbelt states, including Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida.
What do those states have a lot more of in the summer than most of Europe?
Air conditioning.
Florida’s peak of new deaths came in mid-August, but the schools have been open since late August and the decline in the number of new cases continued. There was a considerable push to upgrade HVAC installations in school buildings before schools opened.
Jon Murphy
Mar 27 2021 at 10:37am
That the disease is spread by a/c doesn’t seem particularly likely to me for several reasons:
First: The summer increase in the US appears entirely driven by increased testing and not necessarily new cases.
Second: The virus lives in droplets. Air conditioning is a dehumidifier. It would dry up the droplets, killing the disease.
Third: A/C doesn’t explain the massive increase in cases in the fall-winter, when there was less a/c.
Fourth: Much of the US was experiencing an unusually hot summer. A/c is fairly ubiquitous in the US. If a/c was spreading the virus, we’d expect to see fairly uniform increases across the US. As you point out, though, the gains were largely in the South.
Fifth: Most HVAC systems have filters designed to capture and filter out small particles.
Steve
Mar 27 2021 at 5:51pm
I don’t know enough to comment on HVAC systems, but to your first point Covid deaths reached a local max in late July/early August. More testing doesn’t lead to more deaths.
Jon Murphy
Mar 27 2021 at 7:59pm
It does. Testing are often used in diagnosis.
Dano
Mar 28 2021 at 11:44am
I think it’s that air conditioning is indirectly responsible. Here in the north people are indoors during the colder winter months. In the south, people move indoors during the humid summer months. More people in closer contact indoors without the benefits of sunshine on the virus, led to the spread.
Does the virus live in droplets or aerosols?
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Mar 27 2021 at 7:49am
The major failing with the US response to the pandemic, not instituting a massive screening test program to allow asymptomatic people to isolate could have been carried out at the state level and so was NOT a failure caused by centralism rather than federalism. Ditto the non-nuanced restrictions on social interactions; those were state regulations (and they should have been local).
Grand Rapids Mike
Mar 28 2021 at 6:11pm
Looking at the Covid death data requires looking at the type of person who is likely the die from Covid. First its old people, next it people with comorbidities, which includes diabetes. The diabetes rate in America is approx. 10% of the population in Europe many countries have diabetes rate that is 5% or lower. Also Americans on average are overweight to very overweight another prime factor in Covid deaths. Finally let’s look at New York, where the Governor sent those infected with diabetes back to nursing homes, resulting in a high NY Covid kill rate. Many believe Mich. Gov did the same. So for PBS and other politically minded to blame it on our system of Government is nonsense.
As identified above all the factors must be differentiated if meaningful, non politically motivated cross countries comparison are to be made. Also one needs to be sure all Covid deaths are really Covid deaths, since in the US additional funds are provided for each Covid death. A prime example are motor cycle or car accident deaths are identified as Covid deaths if the victims tested Covid positive.
Jens
Mar 29 2021 at 7:53am
Two statements that concern the EU and the vaccination campaign and are (at the moment) true:
Germany vaccinates more slowly than Great Britain (or the USA).
Romania vaccinates faster than Canada.
Apples and Oranges.
Comments are closed.