1/ Time to talk about the #Covid spike in Europe, which has been coming for a while (see below).

Yesterday France reported 30,600 positive tests - a huge number, equal to 160,000 in the US. That’s double the number (per-capita) the US reported at the peak of the summer spike...

2/ What does this tell us? First and foremost, LOCKDOWNS DO NOT WORK. France had one of the world's harshest lockdowns during the spring. All it did was delay this second wave. And the death toll in France in the spring surpassed the US (at the time)...

3/ The virus can spread VERY FAST under the right conditions - basically that seems to be when people are spending more time indoors.

These numbers look comparable with an R (person-to-person transmission rate) over 3.

4/ National US and European numbers are not exactly comparable, because the US has had rolling regional surges. I think it is more accurate to compare the current European figures to the state figures from the Sunbelt. France is basically approaching the July Florida peak...

5/ Florida reported two days with over 14,000 cases (equal to over 40,000 in France). Florida's population is also quite old by US standards, roughly comparable to France's (8.5% of people over 75 in FL; 9.5% in France).

Assuming - and this is a big assumption...

6/ That testing policies are similar in France and Florida, France is not at too much danger from hospital overrun right now. Remember, despite the screeching of Team Apocalypse, the ICUs in Florida never got more than 85-86% full statewide. Everyone who needed care got it...

7/ That said, the hospitals are likely to be crowded for a while, and France and much of Europe will probably be reporting a significant number of deaths for the next two months (Florida is still working though its backlog of deaths)...

8/ NOTE THAT FRANCE IS NOT CLOSING ITS SCHOOLS OR BEGINNING A BROAD SECOND LOCKDOWN. It has learned the lessons of the Sunbelt and Sweden. The nighttime curfew looks like basically a backdoor effort to close bars, which isn't the worst idea as a temporary measure.

9/ Virus gonna virus. There is no magic bullet. And the vast majority of people who are infected with #SarsCov2 will be just fine.

We can accept that reality. Or destroy our societies.