1/ Don’t look now but within a couple of weeks some European countries - notably France - may be running ahead of the US in new per-capita #Covid deaths. Right now France is just behind the US in new positive tests per capita...

2/ But French positive tests (“cases”) are spiking and those in the US are falling. Over time, hospitalizations and deaths will follow new cases higher - the relationship is far weaker than it was in March and April, but it still exists.

3/ At 2% of reported cases (the actual IFR is far lower, of course), France could see 100+ deaths a day in a few weeks. This would be a fraction of the deaths it suffered this spring, but it would be equivalent to 500+ daily deaths in the US...

4/ And we should all hope the US will trend toward that level soon - deaths are already down ~20% from the early August peak and under 1,000 a day. In any case, the Team Apocalypse argument that Europe had some magical solution is about to get much more difficult.