The reason I'm looking at cases vs mortality is total cases are going to be higher at this point because more testing is being done. We're in the seasonal surge period (2nd wave) in the fall to Christmas period that epidemiologists have been predicting from early in the crisis.
This Wiki page aggregates national data for all countries individually and the entire globe totals. It seems to be reporting mortalities that are attributed to Covid and Covid related deaths as opposed to % above all cause mortality. I view the latter method as the more relevant, but the wiki page is easily accessed and tracked, and that's a good thing. The mortality rate speaks both to virulence and the progression of herd immunity. The country measures vary quite a lot, generally what we can expect to see, according to the focused protection advocates, is surges in cases due to seasonals and end of lockdown periods. The comparison of cases to mortality is instructive.
The Wiki page is available at this link
Starting with Sweden, cases are high.
But mortality is staying low relative to cases, and most importantly, much lower than 1st wave stats.
Other countries in EU
France, again very high levels of new cases, much of which due to more measurement.
Mortality while quite high, tracking well below the 1st wave, indicating herd immunity is progressing.
Austria, cases and mortality are both quite high.
And here's the US, which, I think we can agree, didn't produce a viable version of either lockdown or focused.
Mortality up a bit, but considerably lower than the 1st wave, which is good, but not nearly low enough for an all clear.
The published science on pandemics is where the "focused protection" view is sourced. It seems to me that the primary motive for lockdown would be to delay herd immunity, the only rationale for which is "waiting for vaccine", but while releasing a "coiled spring effect" at lockdown end in the immuno naive population which is still quite numerous due to lockdown.
Going by the large % of commercials on standard TV by Big P and fast food it is reasonable to question the editorial influences on management. Much of the hysteria we have seen on standard channels were due to the understandable normal fears that occur in pandemics, but it certainly also seems to have been exacerbated by the media.
The focused protection approach negates considerably the "wait for vaccine" approach, which as we know in the case of a novel corona is quite long, even in accelerated development conditions.
The "old dog" Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke predicted this "rolling lockdown" pattern and the additional difficulties produced by it in an interview dated April 17, which if you haven't seen is well worth a view IMHO:
Meanwhile, on to healthier times in politics and public health!
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