Outside MA: All of the EU!

I see various people pointing to Europe as proof that you can combat COVID-19 while keeping kids in classrooms.  I figured that it might be a good time for me to do a run down of the EU overall.

So....

Periodically, I look at states and countries where I have friends and/or family to see how those states are doing with COVID-19 cases. I always take a look at the population size of the state as well so that the comparison I'm making to MA numbers is somewhat valid. 

Today: EVERY EU COUNTRY! Buckle up, it's gonna be a long trek.  Feel free to look for a particular country that is of interest to you.  They're alphabetically organized.  Oh, and UK, that's right, you don't get a check in ... you know what you've done to deserve that.

• Austria is seeing case counts around 9 times as many as their first peak
• Austria is still increasing
• In the last 7 days, they had an average daily increase of 79.5 cases per 100,000 people, nearly twice the rate of the USA's 49.6 and nearly two and a half times MA's 32!
• Belgium is seeing a serious drop in cases per day
• The last 7 days had an daily average of 41.3 cases per 100,000 people, higher than MA's 32 but lower than USA's 49.6
• At the end of October, they had an average 160.3 cases per 100,000 people per day!   This just shows that they've really cut that spread down significantly, reducing it nearly by 75%!
• Just a quick note that Belgium went into a pretty full closure, including all non-essential non-medical businesses, schools, and significantly limiting gatherings of individuals.
• Bulgaria saw a quick increase since September...
• Bulgaria never really had a first wave and instead saw single digits in cases per 100,000 people per day through to the end of September
• Since September, however, they've seen a rapid climb and the last 7 days saw an average of 47.4 cases per 100,000 people per day!
• Croatia saw a huge jump in October and is still increasing but more slowly
• Like Bulgaria, Croatia saw single digit cases per day per 100,000 people through the end of September.
• They saw a rather quick rise in cases at the start of October and have since slowed their climb.  
• The last 7 days have seen a whopping 62.6 cases per day per 100,000 people! This rate is higher than the USA's overall but lower than some of the cities/towns in MA that I'm monitoring.
• Cyprus is seeing case counts around 4-5 times as high as their first peak
• Cyprus started with a small first wave that maxed out at around 4.6 cases per day per 100,00 people back at the start of April.
• They then saw a period of single digit cases overall across the entire 876k population for a few months, followed by a period in August that sort of looks like a second wave when compared to the first wave.
• And then came October... and now they're seeing 19.4 cases per day per 100,000 people.  Still not bad when compared to MA, USA, or indeed many of their fellow EU countries but pretty bad given how the rest of their timeline looks.
• Czech Republic is making real strides to get past its huge fall wave.
•  Like Cyprus, you almost wouldn't notice the first wave back in March when looking at the overall timeline, never seeing a single day above 3.5 cases per 100,000 people.
• September started their fall wave but they reached their peak by the end of October/early November.  At this peak, they saw a huge 120.5 cases per 100,000 people per day!
• As I mentioned, they've done will in bringing things under control and have in the last 7 days only seen 48.9 cases per day per 100,000 people, which is just below the USA's current average but going in the reverse direction of us.
• Denmark is seeing case counts around 5 times as high as their first peak and is yet to see a decline in their second wave
• Their first wave saw a peak in April with 5.7 cases per day per 100,000.  Let's take a moment to acknowledge that that's lower than most states in the USA reached in their trough between waves.
• While they aren't driving the cases down, they do seem to have stabilized a bit and are now seeing 18.7 cases per day per 100,000 people, significantly lower than that of MA or USA and generally better than many other EU countries.
• Estonia is seeing case counts around 5 times as high as their first peak and still increasing
• Their first wave peaked at 4.1 cases per day per 100,000 people
• Their second wave started with a slow increase of cases through September and October and then as November hit, so did the significant rise in cases.  
• Their second wave while showing no sign of stopping, is only at 19.4 cases per day per 100,000 people.
• Finland is seeing case counts under twice as high as their first peak
• Their first wave peaked at just 2.9 cases per day per 100,000 people.  The fact that I'm not saying anything about it not being a wave and it peaking that low should tell you something about what comes next.
• Their second wave rapidly sped up at the end of September but has been only slowly increasing since the beginning of October.
• With that said, I would LOVE to see cases as low as Finland is seeing now with 3.9 cases per day per 100,000 in the last 7 days!
• France is seeing case counts around 5-6 times as high as their first peak
• France looks like they may be reducing their cases since a couple weeks ago, though they're still approximately where they were 4 weeks ago so it's still too early to tell if they're going to see sustained reduction or if they just pulled back from a particularly high week.
• With that said, they had 42.6 cases per 100,000 people per day over the last 7 days, which is higher than MA's 32 but somewhat lower than the USA's overall 49.6
• Germany is still seeing about 3 times as many cases as the peak of their first wave and we have no evidence of them decreasing their cases (only the probable stabilization to a new normal).
• Germany's cases look to have stabilized with a new peak and may be coming down but it's too soon to tell if it's just in a normal ebb and flow (they saw a new high just 6 days ago and they see a 7-day ebb and flow cycle).
• At 21.9 cases per 100,000 people per day, they're still seeing fewer than MA's first wave of 31.8 or our currently 32 and well below the USA's overall average for the last 7 days of 49.6 cases per 100,000 people per day.
• Greece didn't really have a first wave so much as a first ripple.... 
• Greece is just starting to work on things to stop their current wave but is currently still increasing cases.
• With that said, at 24.9 cases per 100,000 people per day for the last 7 days, they are below MA's rate and approximately half the rate of the USA overall.
• Hungary is another state that doesn't look like it had a first wave in comparison to their current wave which is still climbing
• The first wave had 2 cases per day per 100,000 people at it's peak
• The second wave, unlike some of the countries with similar first waves in Europe, has reached 49.8 cases per day per 100,000 and shows little sign of slowing its climb.
• Ireland looks to have stabilized at a low after their second wave, but both the peak of the second wave and the bottom of this second post-wave are higher than the first ones.
• Their first wave peaked at 17.4 cases per day per 100,000 people and their first post-wave low reached 0.2.
• Their second wave peaked at 23.8 cases per day per 100,000 people and the new post-wave low looks like it's stabilized a bit at 8.2.  We'll see if they can get back to pushing those case counts further down or if this is truly the new norm for the time being.
• Italy appears to maybe have stabilized at the top of their second wave... maybe....
• At the peak of their first wave, they saw 9.2 cases per day per 100,000 people.  Take that in for a moment.  We heard a lot about Italy and their problems last winter and it was just 9.2 cases per day per 100,000 people.... can you imagine if that was where we were in the US when we hit the top of our first waves?
• They dropped in between waves to fewer than 0.5 cases per day per 100,000!  Name a state that did that please.
• Their second wave currently sits at 57.7 cases per day per 100,000, which is a bit higher than the USA's 49.6.
• Latvia, a place that will always hold a certain place in my hearts as my sister went there as part of a performance troop during the cold war, is another country which doesn't really look like it had a first wave but is certainly seeing a wave now.
• At the peak of their first "wave", it looks like they had 1.8 cases per day per hundred thousand and then they dropped to fewer than 0.5 cases per day per 100,000!
• Their second wave is more substantial but still super-low for a wave.  They're now at 18.2 cases per day per 100,000 people and still increasing... but still, 18.2?  That's not bad, especially considering there are plenty of places that would consider that a low after a wave has been turned around.
• Lithuania is yet another place with barely a first wave and seeing what I would consider a wave now.
• 1.4 for a first "wave" and a low after of around 0.07...
• Unfortunately, their current wave is substantial and, at 53.9 cases per day per 100,000, appears to maybe have leveled off but hasn't started decreasing yet... and it's really just too soon to tell if they're even leveled off.
• Luxembourg does not look good right now
• They started with a 24.3 cases per day per 100,000 people first wave.
• They were able to drive those cases down to 3.1 cases per day per 100,000 in between waves through June but then started seeing slightly more cases in July through September.
• October brought on the second wave though and at 159.8 cases per day per 100,000 in the last 7 days, they have slowed the increase but are still seeing a slow rise.
• Malta is seeing roughly 5 times as many cases in their second wave as their first.
• Malta had 4.5 cases per day per 100,000 at the peak of their first wave at the start of April and then had a long period of nearly no cases... there was even a 8 day period where they saw no new cases at all!
• Their second wave appears to have slowed the climb and is now at 25.6 cases per day per 100,000.  That's roughly half of what the USA has.
• Netherlands saw a minor first wave, a major second wave, and is working on getting past that second wave... though they may have stabilized at a point roughly 5 times as high as the peak of their first wave.
• First wave reached 6 cases per day per 100,000.
• Second wave started in September and seems to have reached its peak in late October with 55.7 cases per day per 100,000.
• Progress has been made but they're still at 31.3 cases per day per 100,000 people.  Hopefully their still reducing but it's a little unclear right now, having just seen a bump in cases in the last week.
• Poland looks to have just started to see the decline in their first wave which really only started in September.
• For a really long time, Poland was seeing about 0.8 cases per day per 100,000 people.
• Their wave appears to have peaked in early November (so it might be a little early to call it the peak).  They saw 67.3 cases per day per 100,000 at the beginning of November and are now down to 58.2 in the last 7 days.  Hopefully they have indeed turned a corner and are truly heading down the other side of the wave.
• Portugal is at about 10 times their first peak
• Portugal appears to still be increasing their cases per day.
• At 60.9 cases per 100,000 people per day, Portugal is seeing roughly twice what we have in MA and also is outpacing the USA as a whole.
• Romania is another one with almost no first wave but a big second wave... and they're not really done with that second wave yet.
• Through June, Romania saw about 2.4 cases per day per 100,000 people
• There was a very slow but steady increase in cases which really started spiking in October.  
• They now appear to have stabilized at 43.9 cases per day per 100,000 but they haven't started increasing yet.
• Slovakia has turned the corner on their first wave, another county with really only one wave.
• They were seeing at most 0.5 cases per day per 100,000 through July
• They then very slowly started increasing cases until September where it picked up steam.
• They reached what looks like a peak at the end of October with 46.7 (fewer than the USA sees while still climbing) and have started shrinking those numbers down to the 25.7 they see today.
• Slovenia like many others, saw their first wave start in September and appears to have leveled off at a new norm.
• They spent most of the year at about 2.4 or fewer cases per day per 100,000.
• Late October really seemed like a decent time to slow the climb.  Slovenia halted around a whopping 90.6 cases per day per 100,000 and, while they've made some ground, the trajectory of their cases doesn't seem to be in a clear downward angle.
• Spain appears to have started reducing their case count but are still at twice the rate of the peak of their first wave.
• Spain reports new numbers only a few days a week, but they do appear to be reducing over the last couple weeks
• At 32.1 per 100,000 people per day at its second peak, Spain was seeing ever so slightly more cases than MA did at our first peak.  They've since reduced to 21.1. 
• And rounding it out with Sweden (Sorry, UK, this is EU, not Europe)... they're seeing a second wave that is roughly 5 times has high as the first... and the first lasted a lot longer than most countries lasting March through July
• Their first wave "peaked" at 10.4 cases per day per 100,000 but it was a long wave which was essentially just a very very slow climb in cases over the course of 4 months and then a decline over the course of July.
• They spent August around 1-2 cases per day per 100,000 people.
• Then, in October (shocking, I know) they climbed quickly to 49.1 in November.
• It looks like they might have turned a corner but it's really far to soon to tell.
  

While some countries in Europe haven't shut down elementary schools, they also don't appear to have shut down the spread of COVID-19, so maybe we should be looking to countries that DO have it under control rather than taking our guidance from places still struggling? Belgium, for instance, has reduced their case counts significantly from the peak of their second wave and it appears to still be going (though still at twice the level of their first wave) by closing down schools, shutting down non-essential and non-medical businesses, indoor gatherings aren't permitted and outdoor gatherings are restricted to 4 people. Czechia has also closed restaurants and pubs and, yes, schools. And Slovakia, also seeing some decline in cases, is seeing a partial lockdown which, yes, includes schools. But no, NPR suggests that a more gentle shut down with schools remaining open might work.

Ireland and Netherlands are the two exceptions I have found that have been able to keep schools open AND see a real decline in cases but ... 

• Ireland has done a very thorough lockdown in all other sectors (including police checkpoints to make sure people aren't traveling) which has led to a truly impressive decline in cases.
• Netherlands has just tightened their restrictions and expanded their support (financial and otherwise) for individuals and businesses at the start of November and, while they do appear to be reducing cases, they still have a ways to go before they can really tell us their success story.  

To sum up, countries in Europe are being pointed to as successfully fighting COVID-19 but many have only put the exponential increase on hold and haven't seen a reduction in cases to below their first wave's peak and some that are seeing a real decline in cases are closing schools.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.