PBS Frontline, The Virus: What Went Wrong.
A friend recommended I watch PBS’s Frontline, The Virus: What Went Wrong. It’s worth watching! Using interviews from many experts from virologists, epidemiologists, government officials, and others, and actual footage from news around the world, it shows how the world is responding to COVID-19 and how America got the very dubious distinction of being at the very top of this this chart:
And near the top of this one:
To be sure, there have been many missteps from leaders and people all over the world. Let’s hope we beat this sooner rather than later.
Followup: C. C. a friend pointed out that these charts don’t take into account “excess deaths”
I suspect that deaths in Russia and Brazil are seriously understated in that chart, since those two countries have been particularly bad about accurate reporting. But the US is also understated, though probably to a lesser degree. Several states are reporting many times more deaths due to unknown causes than they usually do, because they don’t have adequate testing and don’t allow COVID-19 to be listed as a cause of death unless the person was tested.
C.C.
My response:
Yup! The numbers are probably correct to within a multiplier of 2 or so. There certainly are “excess deaths”. I just found this… https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
