Covid-19 Europe

Nordic and Baltic countries 9/20/20

These include the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are not included (they are autonomous countries within the country of Denmark and both have a population of under 60,000).

See https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/sweden-has-less-cases-than-many-european-countries-following-unique-controversial-approach-to-coronavirus/ that discusses Sweden's low key Covid-19 strategy (e.g. not wearing masks) and that "According to the European Center for Disease Control, Sweden has reported 30.3 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, compared with 292.2 in Spain, 172.1 in France, 61.8 in the U.K. and 69.2 in Denmark, all of which imposed strict lockdowns early in the pandemic."

Comparing the Nordic countries per million population it appears the other countries still have a long way to go to catch up in terms of confirmed cases and deaths. 

Nordic and Baltic countries 8/17/20

Confirmed cases	Confirmed cases per million population	Deaths per million population

%(deaths/confirmed cases)	Daily confirmed cases per million population

Observations:

• Finland recorded the first confirmed Covid-19 case 1/29/20, followed by Sweden on 1/31/20.
• Sweeden also recorded the fist death on 3/11/20.
• Sweden stands out as having the highest number of cases as well as the highest deaths per million population (over five times that of the runner-up Denmark) and the deaths/confirmed cases. See for example https://newsroom.uvahealth.com/2020/07/03/covid-19-deaths-in-sweden/ for how this is related to the country's lack of a lockdown.
• Iceland also stands out in the effectiveness in reducing the increase in confirmed cases. For more information on How Iceland beat the Virus see https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/08/how-iceland-beat-the-coronavirus. 
• After Sweden, Iceland has the second-highest confirmed cases/million population.
• On 3/2/20 Latvia was the last country to record a confirmed case and the last country to record a death on 4/13/20.

Western Europe 8/18/20

Cumulative Confirmed cases	Cumulative Confirmed cases per million population	Cumulative deaths per million population

Cumulative %deaths/confirmed cases	Daily confirmed cases per million population

7 day smoothing of daily confirmed cases per million population	7 day smoothing of daily deaths per million population

Observations:

• Spain and the UK lead in numbers of confirmed cases, with Spain having overtaken the UK in the second week of August. Spain and the UK are followed by Italy, France, and Germany.
• When one normalizes the confirmed case by the population then Spain still leads, but now followed by Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, and Italy. Austria and Germany have the lowest values.
• In terms of deaths per million population, Belgium leads followed by the trio of Spain, the UK, and Italy. Germany and Austria have the lowest values, about 10 times lower than Belgium.
• For all countries, there was an initial peak in daily confirmed deaths starting the 4th week in March and ending the 3rd week of April. There is a further rise starting in the 4th week in July.
• The ratio of deaths/confirmed cases for all countries except Italy peaked in May. Italy peak a month later. The ratio has continued to reduce for all countries since then. Belgium, France, and Spain saw a large decrease starting in August.
• in the 4th week of July the daily confirmed cases see an increase for all countries.  Since then Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France are taking the lead.

South East Europe 8/18/20

Cumulative confirmed cases	Cumulative confirmed cases per million population	Cumulative deaths per million population

Cumulative %deaths/confirmed cases	Daily confirmed cases per million population

Due to time-out problems with the www.charte.ca app, we had to reduce the number of countries we included in South East Europe.  The reductions included removing Cyprus and Montenegro in turn.

Observations:

• The first countries to report a confirmed case were Croatia (2/25/20) followed by Greece and Macedonia (both on 2/26/20).
• The first countries to report a death were Greece and Albania (both 3/11/20).
• Serbia took the lead in confirmed cases in the first week of April and has held it ever since. Serbia is followed by Bosnia Herzegovina and  Macedonia with less than half the number of confirmed cases. With about half the number of cases again come: Albania, Greece, and Croatia. Cyprus has the smallest number of confirmed cases.
• Between April and June Slovenia, Montenegro, Albania, and Croatia flattened their curves (also see https://emerging-europe.com/from-the-editor/nobodys-talking-about-south-east-europes-success-at-containing-coronavirus-anymore/). All are now trending upwards with Montenegro, Boznia Herzegovina, Serbia and Albania leading the charge (also see  https://balkaninsight.com/2020/08/03/europes-southeast-grapples-with-covid-19-resurgence/)
• If we normalize by taking the number of confirmed cases per million population, then Montenegro and Macedonia are the leaders. They are followed by Boznia Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania. Greece has the lowest value.
• Albania and Serbia both peaked in the ratio of deaths/confirmed cases at the end of March/early April. Slovenia, Boznia Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Croatia all peaked in May-June.
• Overall Serbia appears to have managed to maintain the lowest deaths/confirmed cases since the 3rd week in March. Just recently Croatia is has achieved similar ratios.
• Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia currently (8/18/20) have the highest daily confirmed cases. Slovenia, Croatia, and Greece have the lowest daily cases.

Eastern Europe 8/21/20

Our definition includes: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Switserland. We do not include Liechensten with a population of 38,000.

Cumulative confirmed cases	Cumulative confirmed cases per million population	Cumulative deaths per million population

Cumulative % deaths/confirmed cases	7 day smoothed daily confirmed cases per million population	7 day smoothed daily deaths per million population

Observations:

• On 2/25/20 Austria and Switzerland were the first two E European countries to record a confirmed case.
• On 3/5/20 Swizerland announced its first Covid-19 death.
• Switzerland and Austria took the lead in confirmed cases early on.
• Poland and Romania have continued to increase the confirmed cases while the other countries remained fairly steady in the cumulative cases until July.
• Austria was overtaken by  Poland and Romania in the second week of May.
• Switzerland held the lead in confirmed cases until mid June, when it was overtaken by Poland.
• Poland, in turn, was overtaken by Romania towards the end of June.
• Starting in July Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria noticeably started to increase their cumulative confirmed cases.
• When one takes the cumulative confirmed cases per million population Switzerland and Austria maintain their lead until the last week of July when Austria is overtaken by Romania.
• Slovakia and Hungary appear to have been the most successful in flattening the curve of confirmed cases per million population.
• In terms of deaths per million population, Switzerland leads with over 220 cases/million population. Romania is in second place and catching up since the cumulative deaths for Switzerland are pretty flat while Romania's are increasing.
• Bulgaria and Poland also have cumulative deaths which are noticeably climbing.
• The ratio of deaths/confirmed cases has peaked for all countries and is in a downward trend,
• The daily confirmed cases for all countries peaked beween March 20 and April 20, wuth Switzerland having the highest confirmed cases/million population followed by Austria.
• After a lull in daily confirmed cases they started to rise again in June for all countries, most noteceably for Romania and Bulgaria.
• A similar chart (though with much lower absolute values) is seen for the daily deaths, though only Romania and Bulgaria appear to have the increase in July August.

More information:

• Austria see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Austria
• Bulgaria see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Bulgaria
• Czech Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Czech_Republic
• Hungary see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Hungary
• Romania see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Romania
• Slovakia see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Slovakia
• Switzerland see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Switzerland

Charts of deaths and confirmed cases for European countries by sub-regions Feb-Jun 2020

Observations:

• Italy (IT) reported its first deaths on February 20. At this time it reported 62 confirmed cases.
• France (FR) was the next country to announce deaths on February 24. At this time France reported 24 confirmed cases, and Italy reported 453 confirmed cases and 12 deaths.
• On March 2, Spain was the 3rd European country to report deaths, at this time Spain (ES) reported 22 confirmed cases, Italy reported 107 deaths and 3059 confirmed cases and France reported 4 deaths and 288 confirmed cases.
• Germany (DE) and Iceland (IS) lagged behind other countries in terms of deaths/confirmed cases.
• Italy and Spain then took the lead and maintained it until the third week of April. By this time, France and the UK (UK) had caught up Italy and Spain and on April 24, the four countries were reporting: 

• Iceland (IS) succeeded in halting the rise in deaths and confirmed cases on April 21.
• From mid May onwards Byelorussia 's (BY) deaths/confirmed cases were lower than other countries (excluding Iceland and the Netherlands).
• By the beginning of June, Russia (RU), Germany(DE)  and Turkey (TR) had pretty much caught up with Italy, Spain, France and the UK in terms of confirmed cases.
• The Scandinavian countries (Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO), Sweden (SE)), Latvia and Germany (DE) appear to lead the way in the number of confirmed cases when the first death occurs.
• By the first week of July: 
  • In terms of deaths/confirmed cases: Belgium (BE) leads the way with 16%, followed by in turn France (FR) 15%, the United Kingdom (UK) 15%, Italy (IT) 14%, Hungary (Hu) 14%) and Spain (ES) 11%. All except Belgium have a population of over 40M.