The Spread of COVID-19 in the West

Interesting series of charts from Kevin Drum, based on data collected by Johns Hopkins. You may have to enlarge or download to read it correctly. It compares other nations to Italy, which was the first western nation with a widespread epidemic. The zero point is the day when the official number of reported infections reached 100. You can see that most nations are closely tracking the Italian example. The exceptions are Spain, which is doing worse, and Sweden and the UK, which are doing better. I know American Democrats want to think that Trump is much worse than the leaders of France and Germany and this is important, but so far the data suggest that the difference is not material. Drum is updating his charts every day, so I will report any changes.