In this edition I take a look at the very wide divergence across Europe. As such I go back to the original March data to see how current data compares.
For context in all of these comparions, bear in mind that the US is at about 120 cases per million per day, and about 2.4 fatalities per million per day.
Spain
Spain now has more cases, per capita, per day – than at the onset of the virus. That’s a shocking point to compare. However – lets take the March case data with a dose of skepticism. Back in March testing was very limited across the globe. Case data now is likely much more accurate. As you can see from the chart – from early July, the cases increased exponentially until 12th September.
Fatalities have not risen in line with the cases, although the data from the last 3 days is about double that of the prior week – and likely on an upswing.
France
France has followed the path of Spain but has not yet broken the back of this 2nd wave. Cases are now higher than in the US. Fatalities are trending up – but, like in France, this 2nd wave is not as lethal as the 1st wave.
Italy
The Italians seemed to have held on to the lessons from the 1st wave – and although cases have increased, these are only 24 per million per day – an excellent number – and something that the US has never been as low as! Well done Italy!
Germany
Germany is much the same as Italy. A modest increase, but nothing to be worried about – with very low fatality rates. Currently about 20 cases per million per day. An excellent result for a relatively large country (83 million people).
United Kingdom
The UK has spooked its stock market with talks of a potential 2nd lock down – but that seems premature to me based on this data. Yes the UK has about 2x the number of daily cases as Germany or Italy, but is only about 1/3rd the level of Spain and France.
Lets also put this in context. If the US today, were at the level of the UK – we would undoubtedly be celebrating! The markets would be hitting records. For the record the lowest 7 day case average for the US was 61 cases per million per day – on June 1st!!
Here’s the chart of US and UK indexes since Jan 1st. S&P is now up for the YTD – the UK is still down 24% from 1st Jan.wsj
Nevertheless – now is the time for action to reduce the spread. But as may articles have pointed out – lock downs are an enormously costly and inefficient way to reduce the spread.
The UK suffered very heavily in wave 1, and has one of the highest fatality levels in the world. 623 fatalities per million of population, or in whole numbers about 42,000 people.
The UK needs to figure out how to STOP THE SPREAD – while getting the economy going. The stock market indicates this hasn’t happened yet.
Other mainland Europe results
Lets take a quick look at some of the case data for other mainland Europe Countries.
- Netherlands – 81 cases per million per day
- Sweden, Germany, Turkey = all 20 cases per million per day
- Greece – 26
- Finland – 8 cases per million per day
JF Insights 