Covid Comparisons

Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff does an interesting comparison of Covid-19 death rates per million population in Europe, the U.S. and various U.S. states. Some excerpts I liked:

It might be interesting to compare death rates in Europe with those in various American states. Belgium, with 804 deaths per 1 million, is the hardest hit European country. We have four states that have been hit harder — New York (1,503) New Jersey (1,254), Connecticut (1,036), and Massachusetts (924).

States with per capita death totals comparable to Spain, Italy, the UK, and France include Louisiana (579), Rhode Island (574), and Michigan (523). The District of Columbia, at 612, also falls within that range.

Wyoming (21), Montana (15), Alaska (14), and Hawaii (12) fall well below the 30-51 range. But, of course, the demographics of these states, as well as many of those mentioned in the paragraph above, make them less conducive to the spread of the virus

I conclude (1) that our experience in the U.S. with this virus has so far been comparable to, but a little less severe than, heavily populated European nations and (2) that, so far, outside of the Northeast, the comparison between this virus and the flu probably does not deserve the derision it has received from some epidemiologists and many mainstream media commentators.

As Mirengoff writes, draw your own conclusions. My conclusions? If I lived in the northeast, I’d move elsewhere. We are headed back to healthy WY for the summer and early fall.  Natural social distancing, here we come. Plus some of the cleanest air in the lower 48.