As it is rather difficult to find effective journalistic reporting, here are some important facts based on empirical data current to April 5th that may help in assessing for yourself where your respective country ranks when it comes to relative impact of this outbreak. Likewise, this will shed light on the topic of which management technique is most effective (total shutdown vs allowing immunity to develop without damaging people’s livelihoods).

1st San Marion – 943 fatalities per 1M people.

6th France – 123 fatalities per 1M people.

19th United States – 29 fatalities per 1M people.

42nd Canada – 7 fatalities per 1M people.

81st Australia – 1 fatality per 1M people.

To date, there is no statistical evidence that suggests that a total lock down is more effective than alternative / less restrictive approaches.

Likewise, there is no evidence that a trend exists between total fatalities per 1M versus total tests per 1M.

Examples of current results from countries such as Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and South Korea who are not implementing a total shut down are as follows:

Case Fatality Ratio (CFR %) / Fatalities per 1M

Netherlands – 9.9 % / 103

Iceland – 0.3 % / 12

Sweden – 6.2 %/ 43

South Korea – 1.8 % / 4

The global mean CFR is 3.6 %, but the relative standard deviation (RSD %) is 137 %.

A RSD % greater than 100 % suggests the data is random and not following a “normal distribution.”

The fact that Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden and South Korea are found to be range bound within the stats of countries that have implemented total shutdown of their economies is definitely worth mentioning at this stage of the game.

These results may suggest that Mother Nature is going to simply have her way as she usually does when it comes to viral outbreaks, the development of immunity and the elimination of weaker organisms.

Anyone with Microsoft EXCEL and time on their hands, could have easily sorted through this publicly available data to arrive at the same ranking.

Here is the link to the data set from which I drew these comparisons.

Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University