7 Comments

I am delighted with the decline in numbers of persons hospitalized with Covid-19 to "less than 1,000" with more testing, now #30 in the US and territories!! I choose faith not fear!

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The mainstream media lost their credibility with me years ago. I place them now in the same category as snake oil salesmen and ambulance-chasing lawyers.

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Covid-19 seems to impact the ability of many on the left and right to base their views on facts. The fact that 12 European countries have higher per-person death rates than the US suggests that Covid-19 is not just a dangerous problem caused by Trump (the left) or over-counting-Corona-deaths (the right). The basic common sense that infectious disease spread via close contact with an infected person seems to be off limits to many on the left or the right. The 15-day and 30-day guidelines of the task force focused on social-distancing and never mentioned closing down the majority of US businesses, although they did recommend working from home as much as possible (basic common sense).

I have been in Germany since late January so I know firsthand what took place there. Germany started opening up its economy on April 20, 8 days after Trump's much maligned Easter comment. The Germans track each LandKreis (small county) for the number of new Corona cases in the last 7 days, raising a red flag if they are over 50 cases/100K residents. Germany's map of LandKreis's (small counties) shows their numbers getting better although the have been a few localized outbreaks where Corona hit meat packing plants (with dormitories) and or nursing homes. By law, the German businesses practice social distancing and mask wearing. Even after opening their businesses, the German Corona numbers are getting better in many places. The German strategy of treating Corona as a dangerous infection without shutting all businesses and locking people in their homes seems to be a winning combination.

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You should write more about this somewhere. It would be interesting to hear what it's like from an American in Europe. (But we'd need some background on Germany's healthcare system and anything else that's pertinent.) Far better than "analysis" from someone locked down in the US.

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You can see the German map at this link: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/478220a4c454480e823b17327b2bf1d4/page/page_1/ . It is posted by the Robert Koch Institute, which is an agency of the German government. The current German strategy is to allow small county-like regions to manage their own Corona restrictions provided its new cases in the past 7-days are not more than 50 per 100K residents. This allows the federal government to put tighter restrictions on Corona hot spots and loosen restrictions in areas where the spread of Corona is under relative control. You can get a good idea of how Germany is doing just by the colors of the map. If you click on a region, details for that region are provided. The text is in German, but if you can't guess its meaning, you can use Google translate.

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Thank you! That's a well-done collection of data, and a reasonable approach. (Plus, good practice for my German.)

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May 19, 2020Liked by Erick-Woods Erickson

I've been basically ignoring anything labeled "analysis" or "opinion," because it's just people spouting off. So I missed the latest story on Georgia's data spike...but wasn't there a previous problem with one of the charts there? The X axis was mislabeled, with dates sort of scattered around, and it looked like cases were dropping when they actually weren't. I know that got people upset (and there was grumbling about "lies, d--d lies, and charts." ) I'm sure it was an honest mistake, but it did look bad for Georgia's government.

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