Ayslyn even with adjusted figures its still bad and will remain so until we get a vaccine and an effective treatment protocol. Had the husband of someone I work with go from healthy to coma to dead in 7 days - same age as me, sobering to say the least.
We've had an anti mask rally in London on weekend - so that's another spike coming in the next 2 weeks. Blackburn, near me, has highest infection rate in UK as of today following a big funeral of 250 people attending - the funeral was ground zero for the spikes now in Pendle and Rochdale as well (funeral attendees live in both those areas)
What made NZ response so effective? Early action and constant communication from the Govt. NZ PM leveraged social media to get the message across. Though, now, if I want to go to either home country (NZ and Oz) I'd have to self isolate for 2 weeks at a hotel nominated by the Govt.
The insanity of people arguing the merits and flaws of barrier nursing protocols, like masks, is just dumb. No one single protocol is effective, it's using the suite of precautions that makes one safe: if they worked for caring for people with other infectious diseases its a no brained that they'll mitigate against covid. So far I've nursed TB, MRSA, HIV, C. Diff and a host of tropical diseases without getting infected. Basic precautions work - the arguments against them are groundless and 'mey freedum' protests are ... I don't have the words to describe them really. Nor do I have much tolerance for 'invisible man in the sky grants immunity' justifications either.
TBH it's got the point, with certain sections of the general public, where I figure evolution will have to sort it out because common sense doesn't seem to be working.