Fact check

"La pression épidémique reste forte mais elle se réduit, plus encore en France que dans les autres pays européens"

^{– Jean Castex (French PM) weekly update, Nov 26}

Ah bon? As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, all Covid indicators are indeed coming down in France.

However, as I recall they were awfully high to begin with, when compared to most of our neighbours.

So while I wouldn’t be surprised if in % terms we’ve seen enormous decreases, our current levels are probably still up there.

Fortunately, it’s easy enough to check, thanks to Our World in Data.

New second wave cases

Ok, it’s technically true: new cases have fallen so dramatically that now only Germany and Ireland are lower than us.

But it’s worth noting that we also had the 3rd-highest peak, after Belgium (no surprise) & Switzerland (big surprise).

Also worth noting: Ireland confined on Oct 22, when they had 236 new cases. When France confined six days later, new cases were at 586.

And you can’t assess how we’ve done without looking at a more disconcerting metric…

Cumulative deaths

In terms of cumulative deaths, France has managed to maintain its relative ranking, although we clearly moved much closer to Great Britain and Italy with the second wave.

At least we didn’t leap ahead of other countries, like Italy & Switzerland.

Ultimately, the clearest takeaway is the not-exactly-surprising correlation of consistently lower cases & lower cumulative deaths, seen in Ireland and especially Germany.