When you read that there have been over 67,000 American deaths and over a million reported infections, it seems shocking. It also feels hugely worrying that Russia has over 145,000 diagnosed sufferers. Nevertheless, the fact is the US is a big country, with 328 million people. Russia is even larger, of course, but has a smaller population of 146 million. So although these figures are enormous, they don't tell the whole story, especially given both nations have done huge amounts of tests: over 7 million in the US and more than 4.3 million across Russia.
By comparison, Ukraine has only tested 134,592 people, according to its own government's data, and Brazil's tally is under 400,000 on the Worldometer aggregator. This information is key to understanding the real spread of coronavirus in any given country - because, like everything, it's all relative.
Let's look at total tests per one million people in some selected countries. You can see there is a massive range in the scale of testing. Smaller countries like Ireland and Qatar have cast their nets wide, while Russia, Spain, and Germany have managed the best of the larger states. India, Brazil, and Ukraine are struggling at the bottom, as is France, somewhat surprisingly.
- Qatar 39,558
- Ireland 34,302
- Germany 30,400
- Russia 29,465
- Spain 28,747
- Italy 24,157
- Belgium 23,522
- United States 21,994
- Belarus 19,627
- United Kingdom 17,771
- France 5,775
- Ukraine 3,608
- Brazil 1,597
- India 802
Needless to say, if the Germans are off by such a large margin, the statistics from Ukraine, Brazil, and India need to be taken a serious pinch of salt. It's noticeable that Qatar tops the list here, as well as with testing. Russia, which has the fourth-highest amount of tests in our sample, is close to last in terms of cases.
- Qatar 5,620
- Spain 4,626
- Ireland 4,409
- Belgium 4,337
- United States 3,619
- Italy 3,505
- United Kingdom 2,807
- France 2,584
- Germany 1,978
- Belarus 1,851
- Russia 995
- Brazil 479
- Ukraine 282
- India 31
If deaths are counted per million of the population, Belgium tops the list - but Brussels also counts all cases with a hint of Covid-19 in its tallies. It's notable that France, with a low testing and case rate, is fifth-highest in this category - suggesting it's Paris, not Moscow, which may be buckling under the strain of the pandemic.
The US is well behind both the UK and Italy, an interesting result considering the media narrative which generally keeps focusing on the country having the highest overall number of dead.
- Belgium 684
- Spain 544
- Italy 481
- United Kingdom 423
- France 386
- Ireland 267
- United States 210
- Germany 82
- Brazil 34
- Belarus 11
- Russia 9
- Ukraine 7
- Qatar 4
- India 1
Comment: A similar look at internal U.S. politics dictating how to interpret respective numbers in states like Florida (R) and California (D):