Randall Flagg wrote:

So rather than just post about something I spent 3 minutes reading on the shitter, I spent the past 1.5 hours researching COVID-19 numbers in the US and the EU.  I did this because this is the only sane comparison you can make between the US and any other similarly populated and geographic location.  I know most of you won't even respond to this post, so the effort I've put in to it was for me, and to objectively look at the data, to have an informed basis to form more complex opinions.  If you haven't done this, please don't make the false claim that I'm not informed as well as you.  You don't get that platform when you're too lazy to put in the effort.  I'll link to every source so you can confirm for yourself (as you should do when you are presented with any claim from any source), but if you're going to disagree with me based on the numbers, please don't pretend they don't exist.

https://i.ibb.co/rvK0L4j/EUvUS.png

https://ibb.co/nRqmVzG

The EU has approximately 26% more people than the US (346M v 329M).*1 The EU has reported 1.557M cases and 176.8K deaths for a total death per 100k count of 39.64. *2  The US has reported 2.581M cases and 126.7k dead for a total death per 100k count of 38.52.*3

That puts the EU at 39.64 dead per 100k, and the US at 38.52 dead per 100k.  So pretty similar.  We also see that the percent dead per group is .4% in the EU and .39% in the US.  Again, pretty similar. 

So off the numbers alone, you can see that the US and EU are very similar, with the US insignificantly better from a numbers point.  And this doesn't account for the discrepancies in  ascribing a COVID death, which is much more liberal in the US depending on state.  Immediately it needs to be noted that 3 EU countries aren't reporting data: Cyprus, Czech Republic, and Luxembourg .  The EU itself does not report on how many tests have been done, but this site tracked the reports from all EU nations that provide that information.*4  We see that in the US, 33.6M tests have been done, whereas total reported tests from EU countries that report their figures are 25.4M.  If you want to understand why the argument that increased testing leads to more positive tests, this is it.  US figures from the CDC state that of the 33.6M tests, 3.2M return positive.*5  As the US is only reporting 2.581M cases of COVID, 3.2M tests being positive means that 20% of positive patients took a duplicate positive test , and wouldn't align with the notion that "10% of people tested for COVID have it.  If every test was given to one person one time, our positive test rate would be 7.6%.  As the EU doesn't report positive test rates (because they don't report test amounts), I have no comparison to make.  But as other areas were so similar, we can make an educated guess. 

As the EU does a poor job of reporting tests and some of the individual country's data is a few weeks old, we know the total amount of tests done in the EU is higher, but not by a significant amount. So 25.4M test x 7.6% is 1.931M cases, which is roughly 400k more than is presently reported.  Again, more tests, more positives.  But here's the real kicker, let's compare deaths per confirmed cases.  That's the apples to apples comparison you really need. The EU has 1.556M cases and 176k dead, so 11% of their cases are fatalities.  The US on the other hand (which has done much more testing) has 2.581M cases, and 127K deaths, for a 4.9% death rate for confirmed cases. Maybe if someone who was in control of information had an agenda, they would intentionally omit this data in favor of counts that appear negative to their opponents. 

If anything, the EU has handled the COVID Pandemic worse than the US, and many European countries don't enforce mask wear which is mandated at least in Western Pennsylvania, which broke 100 new cases for the first time since our first positive in March. 

So my position is that a virus that kills .39% of the population, 81% of which is over the age of 65, doesn't justify draconian measures and the absolute hale of the economy and more importantly, daily life.*6

1.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph … pean_Union and https://www.census.gov/popclock/
2.) https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea
3.) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc … in-us.html
4.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/110 … y-country/
5.) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc … in-us.html
6.) https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-C … /9bhg-hcku

This analysis fails to take into consideration 2 things....

1) It all hit Europe much sooner than it did us....

2) An intentional misleading of the trends going on very recently....we were not asking for an over all analysis.