Indeed, it is much on my mind, each day that I document and calculate these numbers, that the US continues to engage in a massive fail on the testing/tracking/isolation that it should be doing. The failure is thanks basically to our aggressively awful-performing and obstructive White House. This continuance of the White House's obstruction and awful performance will result in many more US cases and deaths than would have taken place if the US had been even only "average" in such matters as test/track/isolate.

As of April 18 numbers, I calculate that 90.4% of US cases and 86.2% of US deaths need not have taken place if they had been in line with global averages outside the US (including all of the countries that have so far been reportedly harder hit than the US). Also I think it bears repeating - the US has 4.25% of the world's population, but as of April 18 had 31.7% of the reported virus cases and 24.4% of the reported deaths. For all I know, these numbers may well ease substantially as improved reporting comes in from various countries, but notwithstanding that point, these numbers indicate to me a failure by the US taken as a whole. We can pay more attention to what other countries are doing, learn from them, and belatedly try to improve what we are doing.

While some in the US, from the health care workers to Governors, are on the front lines and understand many of the basics that should be done, it continues to be the case that if they are getting much done that needs doing it is in spite of obstruction, intimidation, politicking, errors of omission and general wrong focus from the White House. As well, there are still some governors, legislators, etc. who are focused on the wrong things and not getting their jobs done.

In particular, we in the US do not yet seem to have implemented testing/isolation/tracking that would be more appropriate to an attempt to re-enter some semblance of a normal economy, and more appropriate to the depth of the outbreak that we are experiencing, so I am not sure where to spot the light at the end of the tunnel here. I am astonished that it is April and we still have leadership at the Federal and some of the State levels which is totally clueless as to how testing and other measures can obviously be used to help address the crisis as part of a comprehensive plan.

We in the US seem to have descended into the worst of a least-common-denominator situation, where we have many citizens who are capable in their areas, and perhaps in a lot of areas, but we also have many citizens and elected officials who are in the way of life-saving action, and who represent such an awful failure of intellect that one often doesn't know what to say. I do think we can say that this situation has, in some ways, been decades in the making, but it is difficult to watch and be part of it.

My calculations are very crude and probably do not conform to established practices of mathematical epidemiology in some ways, but I don't see anyone publishing anything relevant, anywhere, for the general public, and so I'll continue until I can get a sense of improved calculations being made available to the public.

On the math, IMO there is some limited value to what you say. It certainly bears mention that cases and deaths per million is higher in some other developed countries. I was responding to someone else in talking about mortality rate, but in any case, it bears mention. The US, as the third most populous country in the world, and with some different mixtures of urban and rural, can be expected perhaps to follow some different ratio trajectories than some other countries. With that being said, I think this point has limited value and is not properly understood until bringing in a bigger picture that includes, but is not limited to:

• under 5% of the world's population but more than 30% of reported cases and more than 20% of reported deaths. This is not all explained away by the issues you mention.
• alarming trends in some of the US numbers.
• given the communicability of this particular disease, there has to be a concern that there will be a point of no return past which it will no longer be possible to stop most of a country's population from getting the virus.
• some of the larger countries appear to have done ok. There may be more to come on those stories, but for now, the US looks like it could take life-saving measures by learning from other countries. Some of the smaller island nations have done ok or better than ok.
• I'm not sure the US really wanted to shoot for Italy and Spain as contrasting comparisons, but in any event, the numbers I came up with include those and all other countries, in the world average, and yet the US still has massively higher case rates and death rates than the world averages outside the US.

For now I calculate the extra American deaths, above the numbers that would exist if the US had roughly followed the rest-of-world averages, at 33,641 as of yesterday, and rising at about 2,000 per day, for the moment. If you have some concern with my math, then if you want to calculate your own figures, or if you are able to find figures from some other source, then we could perhaps discuss further the matter of comparing methodology.

As to my response about the politics:

• The US had plenty of time to take measures which would (obviously, to many of its citizens) have reduced the death toll and brought us closer to quashing the problem, and yet it conspicuously failed to take those measures.... in particular efforts to take those measures have conspicuously been hindered by the top level of the federal executive branch. The silence from many in the legislative branch on this hindering and mismanagement has been deafening.

• If I thought it would do any good for public health or the economy, to stay shut up and avoid the activity of shaming, I would do so. The US is dealing with a well-supported would-be dictator who is shamelessly slaughtering (through negligence, malfeasance and such) thousands (and perhaps more, by the time we are done) and who is posturing and preening and prancing about as though he is trying to protect The Constitution and lives and the economy, and it is difficult to know what to do..... how do we at least stay focused on getting actions taken which will actually save lives and return the economy to a better trajectory? Sometimes when dealing with such awful evil (and my definition would actually focus on Trump's self-harm) then we get caught in a vicious circle of trying to figure out what we can say, or not say, that will help or hurt the situation. When I consider the added fascist elements that are so obvious here, and the intensely important role not just of Trump but of his supporters in Congress, in the state governments, and among voters, ... and when I consider the fact that my being silent doesn't seem to do any good, my response for now is that I will NOT be silent about the worst elements of the political side.

• Toward the end of not staying silent, my calculation for the number of US deaths that are over and above the number we would have if the US had followed roughly the world average mortality rates,.... I am calling this for now the "Trump Death Toll". It presently stands at 33,641 as of April 18, 2020. With his perverse de- prioritization of public health to egg people on to disobey public health restrictions, and thus pathetically trying to win some votes through a deadly demoguery, .... and with other measures, he seems to be going for increasing the Trump Death Toll into 6 or maybe even 7 figures, so we'll see where it ends up. At the same time, maybe a miracle could happen, Republican Congresspeople could start doing their jobs and side-track the President so he is doing less damage and appearing to do more good, and we could someday reduce the number to zero or negative.

I guess. I've been confused by some of the discussions as I haven't been certain of the exact definition differences. Mortality rate is here:

[en.wikipedia.org]

"Mortality rate, or death rate,[3]:189,69 is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. "

So, I guess the US has a higher sarscov2-related "mortality rate" than most others, as measured in sarscov2-related deaths per million people over the last month or two. But I don't really know the exact correct scientific way to classify these matters.