It would be good, late in 2020 if we could learn the folly of so many of these rival national Covid takes. Both Sweden, choice of the 'let it rip' lobby, and on the other hand Germany, both had lower case rates than UK in 1st wave, but now higher 1/

Of course in each national wave there is latency between infection, hospitalisation and death. Countries move up and down these grim league tables. There are different definitions used too, for a 'case', hospitalisation & cause of death 2/

but the apparent glee with with some people declare their own country to be 'the worst in Europe' or the world is so misplaced. At times the UK fit that description, currently Belgium & Italy exceed us in Europe, others globally. One can just say UK among countries hard hit 3/

But it must be clear that saying the type of government (left in Spain or IT, right in PL or HU or centralised UK vs federal CH) made a difference was so dubious, or even the gender of its leader - yes NZ still looks very good by that yardstick, but Germany not so much 4/

government interventions, or lack of them - as in US, must have an effect but surely geography, population density, social customs, community spirit or lack of it, and numbers of travellers passing through must all be worthy of further study 5/5