Top Story Of The Week -- Perhaps The Year -- Re-Posting -- September 9, 2020

Sweden had no lock down; no mask mandate; and no mandatory return of affected individuals back to retirement homes. 

Graphics here. 

Of the four graphs, this one is currently the most interesting. This is the "total" number of deaths, not the change per se -- one would expect the curve to rise at least a little. But right now, the number of deaths has flattened out. Obviously over time, the number of deaths will continue to increase, but right now, this is quite remarkable. Not at all expected.

One can argue, had the US done this, we would be in the "same place" as Sweden, but under the circumstances, with the media hyping the story and the opposition taking advantage of the crisis, there's no way any politician, except perhaps "a Barack Obama" could have done what Sweden did.

 

Deaths per million population (set search criteria to "yesterday" and "deaths / 1 million pop):

• In a league of its own:
• #1: San Marino: 1,237
• Also-rans:
• #2: Peru: 911
• #3: Belgium: 854
• The rest of the top ten:
• #4: Andorra: 686
• #5: Spain: 683
• #6: UK: 612
• #7: Chile: 610
• #8: Bolivia: 603
• #9: Ecuador: 601
• #10: Brazil: 599
• Not even making the top ten:
• USA, #12, with 586 (and throw out NY, NJ which were outliers in the US, and we would drop much farther down the list; see below)
• Sweden, #13, 2ith 577 deaths per million
• Mexico, #14, 525
  

Now, let's do the international list but add US states:

• New Jersey: 1,815
• NYC: 1,702
• Massachusetts: 1,326
• Connecticut: 1,255
• Louisiana: 1,101
• Rhode Island: 1,000
• Mississippi: 869
• DC: 866
• Arizona: 717
• Michigan: 682
• Illinois: 663
• Maryland: 630
• Delaware: 625
• Pennsylvania: 616
• Sweden: 577
• Georgia (US): 572

Link here.

This was the problem the US had from the very beginning, from an April 16, 2020, posting:

AP COVID-19 data: fact-checked by Brian Williams, Rachel Madcow, and the NYT editorial board.

By the way, Brian Williams could claim he knew this all along, simply stringing his guest out -- he, the straight man; she, the comedienne.

Really Bad Math, Brian Williams