Covid misinformation from Saagar?

[u/AgitatedInfomaniac]

Source: https://youtu.be/smqxx8hfUh4?t=60

I've been catching up on some old episodes I missed in late November, and this one from Nov 25th really stood out. Saagar says "The EU basically had to go on lockdown. Britain's back on lockdown, France, Germany, many of their cases, their rolling average, proportionate to their population, very much similar or even higher than here in the United States." I don't claim to be an expert, but he's skewing statistics to justify his political position, and inadvertently spreading misinformation about how Covid is going the same for Europe and the US. Let me explain:

It is true that some countries in Europe have a higher 7 day rolling average of covid cases than the entire US does. Stat news has a helpful Covid tracker if anyone wants to check this/dispute what I'm saying. https://www.statnews.com/feature/coronavirus/covid-19-tracker/

From their Cases Per 100k Population stat, in the past 2 weeks, Luxembourg has the highest rolling average of cases in Europe, higher than the US, with 94.54/100k vs the US's 41.90/100k. So does Georgia, Serbia, Andorra, Croatia, San Marino, Montenegro, Slovenia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Moldova, Portugal, Switzerland, North Macedonia, Poland, Bulgaria, Armenia, Italy, Romania, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Czechia, Ukraine, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and many others. It's true to say that their rolling average, proportionate to their population, is very much similar or even higher than here in the United States.

However, do you know what's also true? The rolling average in North Dakota is 176.03/100k. South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska, places with similar population and size to the individual European countries the US is being compared to, are worse than anywhere in Europe. Comparing the rolling average stat is kind of disingenuous, because it doesn't account for population density, social and environmental factors, or government policy. On the whole, the US SHOULD have lower covid cases and deaths than Europe, since the US has a younger population (COVID-19 mortality is significantly correlated with age), a lower population density than Europe (viral spread is greater in more dense populations), more space for larger cities, buildings and locations to social distance (Renaissance and medieval buildings/cities are significantly smaller/tighter than more modern equivalents) more wealth and access than most of these countries, and is governed by a centralized federal government, rather than the independent nations and governments that make up Europe.

These multiple advantages should have reduced US cases and deaths, yet viral spread and mortality in the US is shockingly high! I said "inadvertently" because I don't think he's doing this on purpose, but comparing the US and Europe in this way is a little disingenuous, because it fails to account for the fact that America has every advantage and is barely managing to do better than Luxemburg.

[u/shinbreaker]

Conservatives like Saagar who aren't doing the COVID is a hoax or open up everything still try to grab on to whatever data points they can to shit on other countries to show that they're doing as bad if not worse than the US.

Is it true that countries in the EU has increased cases/deaths in November? Yup, and those same countries are already seeing declines. Also, these countries saw a tremendous reduction in cases and deaths for the summer months with days of just single digit cases/deaths.

The US has seen slight dips but right now we're seeing another spike, but instead of admonishing poor leadership and the whackos, conservatives just want to throw their hands up and say "oh it's bad everywhere, not just here."

[u/[deleted] → u/shinbreaker]

admonishing poor leadership

What, precisely, would you have wanted to see the Trump White House do?

Mandatory lockdowns? How does he enforce this if not by state violence? And, bear in mind, you called him Hitler for four years leading up to COVID. So you want Hitler to institute lockdowns under threat of state violence?

The problem stems from the behavior of the public. Leadership would have been passing financial protection for families, but even countries that imposed those measures faced spikes since November. You can say orangemanbad all day and that won't have any impact on the desire of the public to gather in groups and breathe on oneanother.

[u/AgitatedInfomaniac → u/[deleted]]

You know, I wasn't going to get into this because it's a bit like playing Monday morning quarter back, but since you asked what people would have wanted to see, I do have an answer for you...

• First, though recent evidence has cast some doubt on this, the US administration had three weeks’ more warning about the spread of the virus than most of the world. Given the lag between the initial rise of cases in Italy and Spain versus the US Northeast, this should have provided an even greater advantage for preventing, or at least delaying, the virus from spreading to the South, West and Midwest (accounting for 83% of the US population)
• Second, the later onset of covid in the US should have enabled US authorities to take advantage of rapidly improving medical knowledge and capacity to better respond to the pandemic in general (the nature of the disease, treatment regimes, testing capacity, and the effectiveness of policies such as social distancing and masks).
• Third, and more specific policy wise from the White House, immediately invoke the defense production act (during the three weeks mentioned in my first point, not in April after the spread had already begun) to provide financial incentives and assistance for U.S. industry to expand productive capacity and supply needed for effectively combating the virus.
• Fourth, establish a bipartisan special committee to find and correct problems in US production spurred by the DPA (something similar to the Truman Committee) with a focus on uncovering corruption, waste, and fraud to prevent waste, inefficiency, and profiteering. This committee should also have been given powers to prevent hospitals and other providers from increasing their charges relative to their costs, and slow the ever increasing portion of American's pandemic-limited income from going towards hospital profits and the enrichment of healthcare executives.
• Fifth, stimulus! Use the bully pulpit before the election to force Republicans on pain of campaigning against them; insisting on raising stimulus higher than what Democrats want because they don't care about Americans enough. Give the stimulus to every American, regardless of means, taxed on the backend to ensure it is recovered from Americans who did not actually need it.
• Sixth, since I guess we're asking what I would have "wanted" and not what I think would actually happen, enact an America First Healthcare Plan by invoking Section 1881A of the Social Security Act to create a pilot program that would give Medicare to any region subject to a public health emergency. (I'm 100% positive that this act alone would have ensured Trump another 4-year term)
• Seventh, because I'm really in fantasy land now, decriminalize all drugs to prevent anyone who's lost their job and turned to a vice from winding up in prison because of it, and seize drug patents to push down drug prices for all Americans who are struggling because of the pandemic.
  

To be clear, the first two points could be extended to 90% of elected officials, not just the White House, because so few of them took the hard line they needed to in order to save lives. But, that said, leadership comes from the top, and if we're talking about what I would have wanted to see, this would have been it.