Client Q&A - How is the U.S. doing with COVID-19 compared with other countries?

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved, , TAG frequently receives questions from both clients and the public. We will be addressing these questions in our daily COVID-19 newsletters.

 

Q. How is the U.S. doing with COVID-19 compared with other countries?

A. It isn't easy to make a comparison of the U.S. with other countries because of the overall geography of the U.S. In the U.S., there are significant behavioral differences on both state and local levels.  However, TAG’s analysis shows that the U.S. is not where one would expect it to be, given its status as a wealthy, industrialized country, especially  when compared with the European Union (as shown in the graphic below compiled by CNN from Johns Hopkins University data).

E.U. has since trended consistently downward, while the U.S., which began a downward trend, then went up and hit a second spike. While some differences can be attributed to testing differences  - testing has been fairly robust in Europe, but the significant variations shown in the graph exceed that of testing variations alone.

 

What can we learn from this difference? While things are opening up, we must continue following CDC’s advice by continuing  to take, and advising employees to maintain all COVID-19 precautions including social distancing and the wearing of masks – both in business environments and when “off the clock.”