According to WorldoMeter, the U.S. accounts for about one-quarter of all the coronavirus cases in the world, at 4.7 million cases out of a world total of 17.8 million.
The U.S. has recorded over 157,000 deaths. That is 475 deaths for every one million people. It is not the highest death rate in the world, but it is among the highest. It is even worse in Peru, Chile, Spain, the UK, Italy, Sweden, and Belgium.
The U.S. has tested almost 177,000 of every one million people. Some nations have tested more, including Russia, the UK, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Singapore. When you look at the death rates in these countries, you can see that–contrary to Trump’s assertions–the testing rate does not drive up the infection rate. That’s a non sequitur. Most of those that have tested a higher proportion of their citizens have a lower death rate than the U.S. In Denmark, for example, there are 106 deaths per million, although their testing rate is higher than ours. Qatar has almost the exact same rate of testing, but only 86 deaths per million. Israel has the same testing rate as ours, but only 56 deaths per million.
Number of cases is irrelevant. We are the third largest country by population, so it would stand to reason that we’d have a high number of cases. We are actually tenth in the world in cases per capita. We’re also tenth in deaths per capita. Still nothing to brag about of course.
The U.S. has 1/4 of all the coronavirus cases in the world. The U.S. does not have 1/4 of the population of the world. What is your point? Are you satisfied with a government that is doing nothing to promote scientific responses to the pandemic?
The countries with a higher infection rate:
French Guiana
San Marino
Bahrain
Panama
Kuwait
Qatar
Chile
Some comparison group, Dienne. Don’t you think that as a nation with a highly developed medical infrastructure we should have a lower infection rate than these small countries? Why do we have 1/4 infections of all the cases in the world when our population is not 1/4 of the world?
Thank you, Diane. THIS is our true ranking: largest world economy [since 1871!], but when it comes to responding as a nation to a global health crisis, we are relegated to results typical of tiny 3rd-world countries & wealthy sheikdoms.
Should come as no surprise. Check out infant mortality: we are in the company of Qatar, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzogovina– 22-30% higher than countries like Canada, Greece, UK etc. Or child poverty: among developed nations we rank 34th out of 35.
It should be clear from health stats including covid, infant mortality, and child poverty that whatever we’re doing w/that “largest world economy,” it doesn’t include preserving the health of our people. Judging from the company we keep, one might even speculate our national wealth is made on the backs of the poverty and ill health of a sizable cohort of our population.
“Number of cases is irrelevant.” Speaks for itself, no further commentary needed.
Yes, we have a large population, but the US only represents 4% of the world’s population, yet 1/4 of the cases. That doesn’t add up. And China’s cases are lower than ours and they have 5 or so times the population that we do.
In other words, as I would tell my debate students, that is a terrible argument.
Ours. Not outlets.
Thank you, TOW! This is the stat I like to go w/. Doesn’t matter how you slice & dice it, this stat alone tells you we’ve got an out-of-control pandemic, & far worse so than in other nations.
And it’s not some periodic stat representing a phase that other nations experienced but got under control: they did but we didn’t. We’ve been adding 1k/day for weeks– that was our high in May; it went lower for a while, but bounced back to 1k/ day w/ partial reopenings– & has surpassed 1k/day for the last 6 days! And it’s not just “more testing”: our positivity rate in 33/50 states is above the 5% benchmark reqt for reopening [5% or lower for 14 days], 12 of them range 10-22%, 21 are in the 6- 10% range, as of today. (It goes w/o saying that most of those 33 never metthe CDC/WHO-recommended benchmark before reopening church services, bars, inside dining, gyms, barbershops et al).
Of course we are #1! We are all about exceptionalism.
That’s ‘Murican ‘xceptionalism to you, buddy! 🤒
Of course, the Trump administration now has a new system for data-gathering about our rates of infection, deaths and so on.
Data gathering was removed from the CDC in July and is now channeled to the Department of Health and Human Services. The political aim is clear: Screw up reports on data-gathering so the US does not look so bad. See this link and additional links at the end of the article. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/07/31/cdc-director-white-house-stripped-agency-of-covid-19-data-with-no-warning/#6c7ba2125935
I am NOT satisfied with the United States government that is doing “nothing” to promote scientific responses to this deadly global pandemic! I hear, I listen, I read and research. Nothing of this sits well in my brain. Besides, are all these countries mentioned using the same reliable testing methods? Numbers, data, percentages, statistics – all expressions of mathematics. @dienne77 – the number of cases IS relevant! But HOW do we get the numbers?? Guess I’ll spend my day at home researching WorldoMeter. I speak with 4 close friends who are doctors and nurses. They dread going to work every day. As a former special education teacher (speech/language pathologist) in the public schools, I would dread going back to work in the fall.
Totally with you. This is insane.
A perfect time, of course, to bring 56.9 million children and 4.5 million adults together for 7 hours a day in small, enclosed rooms with poor ventilation.
Just in the news here in MD, Barron Trump’s school that was supposed to open early September has been instructed by the county to go all online until at least Oct 1st. The Montgomery County (home of St Andrews School) Health Commissioner has told ALL the Private schools in MoCo that they will need to change their plans and go online due to the rising # of cases in the state of MD. Yes, our #’s are still pretty low, but people refuse to stay out of crowded indoor spaces(shopping malls) and forego bars and restaurants. The Governor beefed up the mask order yesterday.
It is interesting that the so-called pro-life states express little concern about the health and well-being of students or teachers in returning to school in a pandemic, although some of them are giving students a virtual option. There is no expressed concern for the teachers that will be in classrooms with students for seven hours a day. These are the same states that are facing high rates of positivity. There is no mention of providing masks, PPP or goggles which Dr. Fauci recommended in a recent interview with Randi Weingarten.
retired teacher: There is no accounting for some of the hypocrites who want fetuses to live but don’t mind having children go back to school, even though the area surrounding the school has a high number of infected. These people MIGHT be thinking that the numbers are high only because the MSM media raises numbers simply to make Trump look bad.
I have a very good friend who is a Trump supporter. She watches Fox. We don’t discuss politics because we’d probably kill each other.
It is hard to figure her thinking. Her husband was in a very good nursing home [extremely expensive]. Workers were the only ones allowed inside and they had their temperatures checked before entering.
He caught COVID-19 from a worker who didn’t have a temperature…and died.
She hates it that people won’t wear masks. Trump tells people, “You don’t have to wear masks.”
Apparently there is no connection in her mind about the number of people who won’t wear masks and Trump’s telling them they don’t have to wear one.
Teachers! Come on down to Flor-uh-duh Bob’s Discount School Supplies for paper, pencils, markers, classroom novels and bibles, at prices you can almost afford on a Flor-uh-duh teacher’s salary! We also have Trump 2020 MAGA Masks for you and your students and classroom-sized bottles of hydroxy! Spend $50 and get a Back-to-School coupon for discounted Flor-udh-duh Bob’s Family Funeral Services because, let’s face it, there will soon be a lot of people breathing on you. Thank you in advance for making the ultimate sacrifice so we can get the economy moving again for Donald Trump’s re-election! MAGA!
Retiredteacher – Good catch. I think many of us by now recognize that “pro-life” is just an expression– a shorthand for anti-abortion that has nothing to do with enhancing the prospects for life for anyone once that umbilical cord is cut.
The YMCA in Georgia apologizes for hosting a summer camp after hundreds who attended were infected.
The hosts of a summer camp in Georgia said over the weekend that they regretted hosting the lakeside retreat in June, after health officials said more than three-quarters of tested campers and staffers had been infected.
The virus quickly spread through Camp High Harbour, which is run by the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta, in June, after a teenage counselor got chills and later tested positive. The camp began sending children home the next day, and shut down not long after, but at that point, about 260 campers and staff members had already been infected, according to a report issued Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report said that the C.D.C. had data for 344 campers and staffers who were tested, and that there were about 250 more whose data the C.D.C. did not have.
The C.D.C. did not name the camp, but the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta soon acknowledged that it was Camp High Harbour, which is held in northern Georgia.
Parrish Underwood, the YMCA branch’s chief advancement officer, said the YMCA had hosted the camp at the request of some parents who hoped it would allow for “normalcy” in their children’s lives.
“This weighed heavily in our decision to open, a decision in retrospect we now regret,” Mr. Underwood said in a statement.
All campers passed screenings of some kind, he said, and the counselor who first tested positive for the coronavirus had provided a negative test and had no symptoms when he first arrived.
The C.D.C. said the camp had required staff members to wear masks but did not require the children to do so. The report found that the camp also did not open windows and doors to increase circulation and that campers stayed overnight in cabins, with an average of 15 people sleeping in each.
Georgia was one of the first states to reopen restaurants, movie theaters and other public gathering places in April. Gov. Brian Kemp has recently been urging districts to reopen their classrooms, and one high school opened on Friday, its scheduled start date.
Since mid-June, the state has had a sharp rise in coronavirus cases, and is now reporting an average of more than 3,000 cases and 45 deaths each day.
“The report found that the camp also did not open windows and doors to increase circulation and that campers stayed overnight in cabins, with an average of 15 people sleeping in each.”
This reminds me of what’s been going on in NLB. So far, 18 Miami Marlins tested positive w/n 4 days of season opener, causing various delays/ reschedules of other games – despite no fans/ audience. “Baseball” sounds like “summer camp”– hey it’s outside– no problem, right? Totally ignoring the details. In baseball, traveling & showering/ changing together. Summer camp, unventilated indoor sessions & sleeping 15/ cabin.
Anyone who thinks they can gather just 15 K12 student w/teacher in closed brick&mortar schoolrooms for a few hrs/ day for just a couple of days/wk & be “safe”– via distancing & masks– needs to look beyond PPE/ sanitizing to the ventilation system provided.
P.S. – also pertinent is, the baseball-team covid-spreaders [Marlins] were coming from practice season in one of the hottest of covid hot spots. This goes to trying to “reopen” where covid community spread is raging. Same thing applies to that Georgia summer camp in a state where govr was overriding local mask policies despite rising stats, & community spread was brought right into the camp.
The point being: in a community where covid spread is high, there will be teachers, staff, or kids who bring it into a closed-room gathering, even if it’s just a few hrs/ day for a couple of days/wk. Regardless of PPE/ sanitizing/ distancing/ ventilation, positive tests will cause quarantining disruption to that classroom (& probably beyond that classroom). In such a community this could happen repeatedly. And at this moment, just as school reopenings are happening or soon to happen in many states, community spread is either rampant or on the rise in half+ the country.
bethree5: This to me is the catcher-statement: “…the YMCA had hosted the camp at the request of some parents who hoped it would allow for “normalcy” in their children’s lives.”
How many parents are wanting schools to open so that their children will have ‘normalcy’ back in their lives? The result will be exactly the same. Even if schools completely open there will be no normalcy in either the teachers nor the students lives.
The big question is, “How many illnesses or deaths will it take for the school/district to close down?”
There is no official guidance on that extremely important question. Pretending it won’t happen is another way of ‘hiding one’s head in the sand’ and it will all go away.
Nationalist Geographic
The Lincoln Project
Impotus Americanus is one of the heaviest leaders in the animal kingdom, and is famously known to be an orange, ruddy color not found in nature.
Jul 31, 2020
A friend who is a Veterinarian sent me this. That added another layer of meaning to this effort…Trump as an animal.
I found what Diane has been writing about.
This wacko has gone through years of medical school and believes that Alien DNA is used in medical treatments and that researchers are working on a vaccine to stop people from being religious. The Trump’s endorse her. Yep. Facebook and Twitter deleted her videos for spreading false information about the virus.
………………………………………………..
Doctor Who Trump Retweeted Praises Hydroxychloroquine, Shares Belief Spawning ‘Demon Sperm’ Twitter Trend
Jul 28, 2020
BYTARA C. MAHADEVAN
twitter ~ insta
Hydroxychloroquine is once again being touted as a treatment for COVID-19, and this time by a Houston-based doctor who believes face masks won’t curb transmission of the virus.
Dr. Stella Immanuel has become an internet sensation, pulling in tens of millions of views on a Facebook video on Monday, recorded by Breitbart. The Daily Beast reports that she and a handful of doctors, who call themselves America’s Frontline Doctors, appeared in Washington, D.C. at the “White Coat Summit,” where they argued against the medical consensus on coronavirus. The right-wing group Tea Party Patriots held the event, which was supported by wealthy Republican donors.
In her speech, Immanuel claimed she’s used hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat hundreds of patients, a drug that Donald Trump cosigned during the virus’ early days, which he took himself (though he later stopped). Hydroxychloroquine has proven to not be beneficial in treating COVID; in June, the FDA invalidated its emergency authorization so it could no longer be prescribed for the virus.
“Nobody needs to get sick,” Immanuel said in her speech. “This virus has a cure.”
Immanuel alleged that we don’t need face masks because we have hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, also claiming she and her staff have fended off the virus by wearing medical masks, rather than the more protective N95 masks. It seems Immanuel’s speech might have gone on too long: in the video, the event organizer and participants have to pull her from the microphone.
The Trumps openly endorsed her video, with the president retweeting the clip and Donald Trump Jr. calling it a “must watch.” Later, “demon sperm” began trending on Twitter. Facebook and Twitter eventually deleted the videos of her speech for spreading false information about the virus.
Immanuel—who is both a pediatrician and religious minister—has made off-the-wall medical claims in the past. She’s alleged that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are the result of people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She’s also alleged that alien DNA is used in medical treatments and that scientists are working on a vaccine to stop people from being religious. Even though she lobbied the government this week, she has said parts of it are run by “reptilians” and other aliens.
Immanuel is a registered physician in Texas and runs a medical clinic next to her church, Firepower Ministries, both of which are located in a strip mall. She was born in Cameroon and attended medical school in Nigeria.
https://www.complex.com/life/2020/07/doctor-trump-retweeted-praises-hydroxychloroquine-demon-sperm-twitter-trend?utm_campaign=social_widget_share&utm_medium=social&utm_source=email
Twitter suspended Don Jr for posting the video. Then Don Sr posted it
This just in: Campaign worried that Jabba the Trump will pupate and turn into Mothra before the election.
Timeline of Recent Trump COVID-19 Quotes
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
February 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
February 26: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don’t think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”
March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”
March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”
March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”
March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
March 6: Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
March 6: “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
March 7: “We’ll hold tremendous rallies…I’m not concerned at all.”
March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on coronavirus.”
March 9: “This blindsided the world.”
March 10: “Our Coronavirus Team has been doing a great job. Even Democrat governors have been VERY complimentary!”
March 11: “I am fully prepared to use the full power of the Federal Government to deal with our current challenge of the Coronavirus!”
March 12: “108 countries are dealing with the Coronavirus problem, some of which we are helping!”
March 13: “To this point, and because we have had a very strong border policy, we have had 40 deaths related to Coronavirus. If we had weak or open borders, that number would be many times higher!”
March 13: “Today I am declaring a national emergency. Two very big words.”
March 17: “I’ve always known this is a pandemic. I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as serious.”
Sunday, August 02, 2020 1:00 am
Nations deal with surge in cases
3rd-most deaths now in Mexico with 46,600
Associated Press
Mexico now has the third most COVID-19 deaths in the world, behind Brazil and the United States, where a hurricane bearing down on the East Coast on Saturday is threatening to complicate efforts to contain the virus.
Hurricane Isaias’ imminent arrival forced the closure of some outdoor testing sites even though Florida has become a major hot spot, and other states in the path of the storm prepared emergency shelters that comply with social-distancing measures.
Meanwhile, Mexican health officials Friday reported 688 new deaths, pushing the country’s confirmed total to over 46,600. That put Mexico just ahead of the United Kingdom, which has more than 46,100, according to the tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Some countries are seeing hopeful signs: China reported a more than 50% drop in newly confirmed cases in a possible indication that its latest major outbreak in the northwestern region of Xinjiang may have run its course.
However, in Hong Kong and elsewhere, infections continue to surge. Hong Kong reported more than 100 new cases as of Saturday among the population of 7.5 million. Officials have reimposed dining restrictions and mask requirements.
Tokyo on Saturday saw its third day straight of record case numbers, the metropolitan government said. Nationwide, Japan’s daily count of cases totaled a record 1,579 Friday, the health ministry said.
And Vietnam, a former success story, is struggling to control an outbreak spreading in its most famous beach resort. A third person died there of coronavirus complications, officials said Saturday, a day after it recorded its first-ever death as it wrestles with a renewed outbreak after 99 days with no local cases.
All three died in a hospital in Da Nang, a hot spot with more than 100 cases in the past week. Thousands of visitors had been in the city for summer vacation and are now being tested in Hanoi and elsewhere.
In South Korea, prosecutors arrested the elderly leader of a secretive religious sect linked to more than 5,200 of the country’s approximately 14,300 confirmed cases. He has denied charges of hiding members and underreporting gatherings to avoid broader quarantines.
The global pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of this year’s Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, with as few as 1,000 pilgrims already residing in Saudi Arabia taking part, down from 2.5 million last year.
India recorded its steepest spike of 57,118 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking its coronavirus caseload close to 1.7 million, with July alone accounting for nearly 1.1 million infections.
In France, travelers from 16 countries where the virus is circulating widely now must undergo virus tests upon arrival at airports and ports. The country is not permitting general travel to and from the countries, which include the U.S. and Brazil. The testing requirement therefore only applies to people entering under limited circumstances.
Indiana reports 989 new cases
The Indiana State Department of Health announced 989 additional Hoosiers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through testing for a total of 67,122 cases Saturday.
A total of 2,771 Hoosiers have died from COVID-19, an increase of six over the previous day. Another 200 probable deaths have been reported based on clinical diagnoses in patients for whom no positive test is on record.
Another 68 Allen County residents tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total to 3,590 cases and 158 deaths Saturday.
– Journal Gazette
Not surprising.
With less than 5% of the worlds population, we use 25% of the worlds natural resources (oil, coal, aluminum, paper)
We also have 25% of the worlds prison population.
And, not coincidentally, 25% of the worlds nitwits.
SomeDAM Poet: Trump and his family encourage nitwit-ism. Truth doesn’t matter if a lie will gain votes.
QAnon: Why rabid pro-Trump conspiracy theories keep gaining steam
July 2, 2020
A conspiratorial pro-Trump subculture known as QAnon is lurking in mainstream American society while spreading baseless accusations against prominent people in politics, business, and culture.
The internet-fueled movement began gaining traction with some of the president’s supporters back in 2017 and has slowly grown to the point where QAnon-supporting politicians are being elected. More generally, the FBI describes“conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” as a growing threat.
And while President Trump has not outwardly supported QAnon, he has retweetedits conspiracy theories on multiple occasions (while his son, Eric, posted and then deleted a QAnon graphic on Instagram ahead of Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma). Trump’s supporters, though, have been more vocal about it…
QAnon began with “Q,” a persona claiming to be someone within the government, promising to expose how dark forces are working against Trump and his administration. The “Anon” part comes from Q’s readers, who decipher Q’s “clues” on message boards and build outlandish interpretations. Posters named “Q” have been instigating unfounded theories on social networks including 4Chan, 8Chan, and Reddit.
“[Conspiracy theories] like this fill an important psychological role for many people,” Thomas J. Wood, an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University who has studied how conspiracy theories gain public support, told Yahoo Finance. “It tends to sway those who have chronic anxiety and feel disaffected by politics by providing a symbolic and intuitive story for them.”…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-buying-rabid-pro-trump-conspiracy-theories-120653906-180250093.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma
“A Quagmire Very Similar to Vietnam”: Could Trump Rush a COVID Vaccine to Reverse His Political Spiral?
JULY 30, 2020
…Rendell is more worried about a “Trump effect” in polling—“a lot of people are embarrassed to say they’re voting for Trump, so if a poll in Pennsylvania shows Biden up seven, we’re probably up four”—about turnout, and about the possibility of hackers sowing last-minute confusion regarding polling places in the middle of a pandemic. Scaramucci understands the uncertainties. But he’s dead certain of his analysis. “The virus is a quagmire very similar to Vietnam,” he says. “LBJ never wanted to back down. He doubled and tripled down into the war. You’re witnessing the modern-day Lyndon Johnson. Trump’s political career has ended. He just does not realize it yet.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/could-trump-rush-a-covid-vaccine?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=vanity-fair
Deaths over cases:
US-158/4700, 3%
UK-46/303, 15%
Spain-30/188, 16%
Why the drastic variation?
One would assume the death rate is a constant the world around, so the case rate should be based on the death rate or hospitalization rate.
The US testing rate at 178K per M exceeds France at 45, Mexico at 8, Canada at 108, and Germany at 95. They look like the real laggards.