By Eric Zuesse
As of the start of 24 June 2020:
Chile has 13,120 cases per million inhabitants, and 236 deaths per million, but U.S. has 7,324 cases per million and 373 deaths per million.
Strictly on deaths, Belgium and UK are the worst. Belgium has 838 per million, and UK has 632 per million. Belgium has 5,247 cases per million, and UK has 4,511; and, while those figures on the sheer numbers of cases aren’t as high as America’s and Chile’s, they’re even worse on the deaths.
Also terrible is Sweden, on both the cases and the deaths, with 6,025 cases per million, and 511 deaths per million. Also, Peru has 7,913 on cases, and 255 on deaths. So, both of those countries’ Governments are also failures. And Brazil is likewise getting up there, now at 5,418 on cases, and 248 on deaths.
Some of the Arab monarchies, such as Qatar, have astronomically high cases per million (Qatar has 31,094 cases per million) but extremely low deaths per million (Qatar has 35 deaths per million) because almost all of their cases are foreign workers and maybe the sick ones are expelled, or else those countries are actually providing stellar medical care to their coronavirus-afflicted. (It’s not clear which, or whether it’s both.) Wikipedia says “As of 23 June 2020, Qatar has the highest number of confirmed cases per capita of any country in the world. … The number of deaths in Qatar has been low relative to the number of reported cases, which may be in part due to the country’s adequate healthcare system and the fact that a high proportion of residents are young and healthy.”
At the extreme opposite end, with stellar low case-numbers and death-numbers, are China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Vietnam. (Some other countries also have extremely low numbers, but have been reported to be systematically undercounting.)
However, it is, by now, clear that at least Chile, U.S., UK, Belgium, Sweden, and Peru, have terrible governments — failed governments — unquestionably among the world’s worst, as regards their handling of the coronavirus-19 challenge.
One can argue about the reasons for this, but one cannot argue about the outcomes, thus far. Furthermore, on June 19th, the Moon of Alabama site, which is one of the most reliable news-sources on international affairs, headlined “Coronavirus — The U.S. Has Given Up”, and it showed a stunning graph, of the daily new cases of coronavirus infection in the United Sates versus in the European Union,
https://www.moonofalabama.org/
and what the graph indicated is that whereas both areas had almost the same amount of daily new cases during the ascent, which was up till the end of March, at around 30 thousand daily new cases in each of those two global areas, the numbers of daily new cases as of June 17th in America were 23 thousand, but in Europe had plunged to only around 4 thousand, so that whereas America was continuing to get even worse, Europe wasn’t. America is continuing to get even worse, right along, now, with Central and South America, and, though Europe isn’t doing nearly as well as many Asian countries are, it’s doing far better than Western Hemispheric countries (with the exception of Venezuela, which is doing superbly). In this sense, Europe might actually be closer to Asia than to even North America. (In this context, Canada’s cases per million are 2,701, and deaths per million are 224. The global average is, respectively, 1,199, and 61.4; so, though Canada isn’t nearly as atrocious as the U.S., it’s still bad. Mexico’s numbers are 1,436 and 175.)
* Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
