US President Donald Tr*mp claimed today 20 May 2020 that the US was doing better than Germany in combatting the coronavirus also known as Covid-19. Asked to describe the medical and social impact of the disease, he appeared unable to distinguish clearly between tallies and ratios. Let us clarify.

Postulate: Donald Tr*mp did not create Covid-19 and is not responsible for its introduction into the US.

Postulate: Raw tallies are meaningless due to the large differences in the respective national populations; to make a comparison one must compare ratios.

Fact: As of 20 May, Germany with 80MM residents has had 8,144 confirmed deaths and 178,400 cases (0.1018/1000) and 178400 cases (2.2310/1000).*

Fact: The US with 330MM residents has had 93,439 confirmed deaths (.2831/1000) and 1,551,473 cases (4.7014/1000).

Fact: If the number of deaths or cases in either country is inaccurate by 50%, the relative impact of the disease in the two countries would not change.

Conclusion: Turning to 5th grade arithmetic, that means that compared to Germany, the US has had 2.73 times as many deaths and 2.12 times as many cases per capita. So we have a higher rate of infection and once infected, a higher likelihood of death. In short, you couldn't pick a more likely place to become infected with Covid-19 or to die as a result than in Donald Tr*mp's America.

The cure for this disaster will be available on November 3.

* Source of statistics linked below; values will have changed since time of commentary.

Data source