What could Trump have done to mitigate the damage from covid-19? Look at what Canada did.

[Yavin4]

Canada (pop. 37.59 million) has about 42,000 cases and 2,141 deaths. The excerpt below is from an article in March.

Canada spent January and February putting together testing and monitoring infrastructure—efforts that look a lot like the model laid out at the Johns Hopkins table. By catching cases early, and investigating their origins, Canada has blunted the impact of the virus thus far.

In Canada, provincial and federal health authorities have managed to test roughly 15,000 patients across the country. Nationally, Canada has seen just 157 confirmed cases—the majority of which were imported from other countries. There have been very few known instances of human-to-human transmission inside Canada so far, in part because those who caught the virus have either been placed in quarantine or self-isolated quickly.

Canada has spent the past two decades preparing for this moment.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/13/canada-shows-how-easy-virus-testing-can-be/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Canadian testing rate only a bit better than US, but better focused and earlier

13.3 per thousand US
16.4 per thousand Canada

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. CBC just announced today that Canada is preparing to triple testing rate in coming weeks

Most of the difference in per capita infection and death rate in Canada comes from greater compliance with stay at home restrictions, compared to the US as a whole. We have government (provincial and federal) messages on radio and tv several times per hour reminding and praising folks to stay home and take all necessary precautions.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Yes to both points: more testing coming and compliance is very good nationwide.

Elizabeth Warren is very much like a Canadian. Astute and progressive.

[pwb]

2. Something?

.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. That article is March 13. But figures holding up

As of today, US 2.6 cases per thou, Canada 1.1.

Deaths 148 per million US, 57 per million Canada.

Canada is creeping a bit closer to US rates than before. Case rate has been running about 2.5x in US and death rate about 3.0x in US but those ratios have ticked down a bit.

Expect US death rate to be higher when Excess Deaths are factored in. A bit of an under count in US, and might be in Canada too, but with Universal Healthcare, people are less likely to die at home of "unspecified causes".