Here is a good explainer as to why Germany has been a positive outlier in terms of its Covid-19 cases and deaths. They make an apples to apples comparison with France that shows why France has 165,000 confirmed cases and 18,000 deceased whereas Germany has 138,000 cases and only 4,000 deceased.
Firstly, the more people you have tested, the more cases you find, the lower the percentage of deaths caused by the disease. Germany, South Korea, Taiwan...these countries have a much, much better handle on who has actually been infected. France's number of people actually infected by the coronavirus is almost certainly much higher. A California antibody study suggests as much, and this is consistent with everything we know about this disease.
Secondly, when you know who has the disease, you can do a much better job of tracking them and their contacts. You can then isolate people before they become symptomatic.
All of this is to suggest that if you want to get a handle on this pandemic, you are going to need a truly massive testing and tracking regimen. This will require a sustained and expensive effort by the national government.
Trump doesn't want to do that. Maybe he will cave - again - to his health advisors, but who the fuck knows at this point.
We know what we have to do. We have the evidence in front of us. The odds are 50-50 that we do it.
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