June 4, 2020 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Western Europe (we'll define as France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and Austria) shows how regions of the world with existing socioeconomic problems have seen Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) simply amplify them while in other regions where fundamentals have been stronger (China and ASEAN), have simply been temporarily setback.
Even within nations, this is also the case, where sectors and industries performing well have merely been set back while others already struggling long before COVID-19 showed up have been dealt a severe blow.
Health Impact
Just looking at the reported number of cases and the reported number of deaths tells us that even deep in the heart of the European Union there is some disparity, whether it is via how testing is done, statistics are gathered and reported, the state of healthcare in each respective nation or some sort of demographic factor being responsible.
Germany and France, for example, had nearly the same number of reported COVID-19 cases, yet France had many, many more reported deaths.
France: 182,942 cases, 28,432 deaths
Germany: 180,789 cases, 8,428 deaths
Spain: 282,480 cases, 26,837 deaths
Belgium: 57,342 cases, 9,312 deaths
Portugal: 30,788 cases, 1,330 deaths
Austria: 16,539 cases, 641 deaths
Fears of overburdened healthcare infrastructure stemmed from predictions and models of a pathogen that would spread faster and have a greater impact on public health than COVID-19 actually did.
As testing continues to expand, the number of infected appears to have been vastly larger than previously reported meaning that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is thus much lower.
Even within nations, this is also the case, where sectors and industries performing well have merely been set back while others already struggling long before COVID-19 showed up have been dealt a severe blow.
Health Impact
Just looking at the reported number of cases and the reported number of deaths tells us that even deep in the heart of the European Union there is some disparity, whether it is via how testing is done, statistics are gathered and reported, the state of healthcare in each respective nation or some sort of demographic factor being responsible.
Germany and France, for example, had nearly the same number of reported COVID-19 cases, yet France had many, many more reported deaths.
France: 182,942 cases, 28,432 deaths
Germany: 180,789 cases, 8,428 deaths
Spain: 282,480 cases, 26,837 deaths
Belgium: 57,342 cases, 9,312 deaths
Portugal: 30,788 cases, 1,330 deaths
Austria: 16,539 cases, 641 deaths
Fears of overburdened healthcare infrastructure stemmed from predictions and models of a pathogen that would spread faster and have a greater impact on public health than COVID-19 actually did.
As testing continues to expand, the number of infected appears to have been vastly larger than previously reported meaning that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is thus much lower.



















