I took a look at daily fatality trends for several Southern Hemisphere and Equatorial countries vs. Northern Hemisphere countries. Adjusted for population, several European countries and Russia look like heck. Asian countries (S. Korea, Japan, etc., not including China due to distrust of their reports) are so low that the seemingly almost random variations are probably meaningless. They are likely, and perhaps should be, laughing at us. US fatalities are moderately high, and increasing, but not at this time trending sharply higher as are a good part of Europe and Russia. The Southern Hemisphere and Equatorial countries, esp. India and Brazil are seeing strongly decreasing fatalities. This after them, for a while there, looking like they were headed through the roof.
MUCH of this is clearly seasonal, and does not bode too well for us, given that we are not yet even 1/2 way into fall. The data from Korea, etc., plainly would seem to disprove some contentions popular on FR, at least as usually expressed / rationalized. Granted that their societies function differently than ours, even in “democracies” like S. Korea or Japan. That’s not to say I want to “turn Japanese”, to quote “The Vapors”, but it IS to say many FReepers misunderstand or misstate, perhaps deliberately, the problem(s) from a health care perspective.
OTOH, the European data raises serious questions. Did many Euro countries relax in practice, if not by edict, more than we? (Seems unlikely.) Did “Fall” simply arrive sooner? Sweden and Norway are smaller and have had somewhat different approaches*, yet, after their “first waves”, fatalities have remained low. Keeping in mind that they, doubly so for Norway, almost certainly have had nowhere near enough infections to attain “herd immunity”, why have they succeeded, and will they through Fall and Winter?
*FWIW, a good family friend in Norway tells me (close paraphrasal) “Everyone is responsible and follows the rules” (masks, social distancing), yet outside of that, reasonably normal activity has resumed.
Case numbers for both Sweden and Norway are ramping up, but, it may be too “early” to guess at their future fatalities: Will their fatalities follow the present US pattern, or that of France?
More generally: Is there any data yet on how long immunity will last?
Many questions. And perhaps the biggest of all: Will we accept the answers if we do not like them?
That raises many questions. Does such areas have higher immunity baked into the cake via other methods, ie regional sars, diet, environment.