The world count of confirmed Covid-19 cases has now passed five million. A big chunk (one and a half million) of those cases are in the US.
The number of cases has risen by 80-90,000 a day for a month or more.
The death rate has slowed a little, but is still increasing by over four thousand a day, and now totals 327,000 (attributed deaths).
The Russian death total of 2,972 still looks extraordinarily low compared to the number of cases, which is the second highest in the work at over three hundred thousand.
Current totals for countries with the most cases;
An as usual Donald Trump is in the Covid news making weird claims, now suggesting that having the most cases is a ‘lead’ – Trump calls high number of cases in US a ‘badge of honour’
“By the way, you know, when you say that we lead in cases, that’s because we have more testing than anybody else. When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that in a certain respect as being a good thing, because it means our testing is much better.
So, if we were testing a million people instead of 14 million people, it would have far few cases, right?
Of course they wouldn’t have fewer actual cases, but the would have fewer recorded cases.
“So, I view it as a badge of honour. Really, it’s a badge of honour”.
While the US has tested more people than any other country – actually 12,807,260 according to Worldometer, but they also have nearly three times as many deaths (94,181) as the next highest country – the UK currently has 35,074.
And the US testing rate per million population is 39th highest at 38k, with some countries much higher – Iceland has a test rate of 169k, and New Zealand is ranked 28th with 49k.
The Covid problems are far from over as the latest charts from Worldometer show:
Your NZ 
Duker
/ 21st May 2020The country with the current highest ‘ daily death rate ( per 100,000) is ……..Sweden
The detail is 0.69 per 100k which gives Sweden 50-60 deaths per day
https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden
The peak for Sweden was about a month ago when the rate was 1.01
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020Sweden flattened the curve without a lockdown then, isn’t that right Duker.
Belgium had a lockdown and their curve peaked at 5 times that of Sweden. The lockdown was all about flattening the curve wasn’t it?
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020This is the ICL model applied to Sweden and it’s actual outcomes.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYfHi-FWsAQO3dD?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
Might need to tweak the model a bit.
Conspiratoor
/ 21st May 2020Apples with apples comparison?
Sure there are exceptions. But putting aside countries able to effect border control by virtue of having no land borders, a general trend emerges (deaths per million) between open democracies at one end and totalitarian states with active message control at the other
Duker
/ 21st May 2020So there was all those infectious people from Norway crossing into Sweden ?
How come Norway doesnt have the same results from the much much higher infection rates crossing into Norway from Sweden ?
Norway’s daily death rate per 100k is effectively zero now ( even their peak was only 0.15)
Conspiratoor
/ 21st May 2020Oh look, you’ve found an exception. Well done
Duker
/ 21st May 2020Exception ? You meant Sweden and Norway is the only significant border Sweden has. Demolish is a better word
Gezza
/ 21st May 2020😳
You’ve found a demolish doesn’t make sense.
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020“Norway is the only significant border Sweden has”
The word significant clearly has a very different meaning for you than anyone else.
Duker
/ 21st May 2020Demolishes his theory , as opposed to an exception.
The example cases the other way is NZ , Greece, Australia where early lock-downs worked – rather than muddle your way into one too late, New York, Britain, Belgium, Italy Spain etc
Greece is same population as Sweden
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020Where is your evidence the lockdowns worked? There simply isn’t any that supports your claim ‘early lockdowns worked’. Belgium locked down earlier than Greece & NZ. Australia did not lockdown at all. You could get a haircut, go to any shop, and many other things without PPE.
If the theory is correct, Australia should have seen significantly more death than NZ
If you theory is correct, Tokyo should be a necropolis.
If anything, lockdowns made things worse. NY and the UK both seeded their rest homes with Covid as part of the lockdown.
Here is the theory for Sweden against reality;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYfHi-FWsAQO3dD?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
Given we have real world models of both lockdown (UK say) and non-lockdown (Sweden), we could back work the reality of Sweden to see what the UK would look like without lock down. That results in about 24,000 deaths.
So, you could reasonably hypothesis the additional 10,000 deaths are due to the lockdown.
Or perhaps it’s just totally random.. Some places get hit hard, others don’t and we do not know why.
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020No second waves at all. Covid infections have decreased after ending the lockdowns across almost all countries.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYevgzZXkAcb8fp?format=jpg&name=medium
Call me Ishmael...
/ 21st May 2020It’s too early to tell. People think it’s over. It’s not.
“The prospect of a second wave of coronavirus infection across Europe is no longer a distant theory, according to the director of the EU agency responsible for advising governments – including the UK – on disease control.
“The question is when and how big, that is the question in my view,” said Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/top-eu-doctor-europe-should-brace-itself-for-second-wave-of-coronavirus
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020Yes. It is too soon to tell. The data to date tells a story. This might change, however what data is this based on exactly?
The theory was that the lockdown would slow the spread. Releasing people, given that theory, would cause a second wave.
The absence of that wave beings the theory into question.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 21st May 2020No active community cases but 5 million people still engaged in productivity and job-destroying rituals. Bloody lunacy.
Call me Ishmael...
/ 21st May 2020only 21 deaths and a successfully broken chain of transmission – the best outcomes of any OECD country and something to be celebrated.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 21st May 2020Sure. That’s the plus side of the ledger. Now come the costs which you ignore so happily like a good Lefty should.
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020Iceland is in the OECD
Iceland had 10 deaths.
Iceland did better
Lativa is in the OECD
Lativa had 21 deaths.
Lativa had an identical outcome.
Tied for second, not the winner.
Duker
/ 21st May 2020Iceland is only 365k , you have to use per head of population. ( we are 14X their pop) Apart from its capital around the size of Hamilton, every one else lives in villages
We have more travellers arriving in a month than their entire population
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020Ah! Different game to play!
Per capita, doesn’t that put Australia in the ‘best outcome of any OCED country’ chair?
Kitty Catkin
/ 21st May 2020If the transmission chain is broken, why are we having to do these idiotic rituals that assume that everyone has it ?
I wonder if Ishmael has any idea of the social costs alone, like the rise in domestic violence because the law made the victims stay with the abusers? No moving house under any circumstances. What about the thousands of people over 80 who were left to fend for themselves because it was illegal for their home help or even relations to enter the house? Or the doubling of calls to the mental health phonelines? Or the women like the one on the news who had to go through the miscarriage of her first baby alone because her husband wasn’t let in to the hospital or the people who had to die alone ?
300+ more old people died in these months than is usual for the time of year. This came from the Official Information before anyone sneers and.or says it’s made up.
Pink David
/ 21st May 2020“If the transmission chain is broken, why are we having to do these idiotic rituals that assume that everyone has it ?”
Control.
Duker
/ 21st May 2020Kitti making numbers up again…
Munchausens type facticious disorder by proxy where imaginery other people have died or are ill.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 21st May 2020Donald Trump drug to be tested on UK NHS staff with hopes of preventing coronavirus
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/donald-trump-drug-tested-nhs-staff-hopes-preventing-coronavirus/
Duker
/ 21st May 2020So we can toss away Trumps earlier claims that it was a “cure” for sick patients .
And didnt he wind down the coronavirus task force as it wasnt necessary anymore …. and here is popping a pill a day as a ‘preventer’
Only in Trump[redacted]
Gezza
/ 21st May 2020Who in heaven’s name apart from looneys would want to take a drug to make them Donald Trump?