Why Australia in particular? I don't really feel like they're all that similar to the US.

Other than Canada I can't think of a country more similar to the US than Australia.

I feel like there are a lot of pandemic relevant factors that are pretty different. 25m people vs 300m. Island nation, less international travelers, very different climate during the opposite season.

a) Is Canada and Mexico affecting or is somehow responsible for the disastrous way that the US is handling COVID-19 ? Otherwise it’s a moot point.

b) Number of international travellers is irrelevant given that the policy in Australia was to quarantine ALL visitors for 14 days. Same policy that the UK has now adopted and you can’t argue that they don’t have a lot of international travellers. Again it is simply bad policy.

c) Climate is not that different to many parts of the US right now. It’s not like it’s winter versus summer. Fairly mild temperatures in both countries right now.

Similar in what ways? Aus is an island country whose societal composition and Constitutional rights are nothing like ours. I wouldn't say they're very similar at all.

I'd say they are pretty similar in most respects. But geography is a big difference that is relevant to Covid-19.

Autrstial probably didn't have community spread of covid until Late Feb. But America had community spread in at least mid Jan--and probably earlier. But Australia locked down essentially when America did. If they can eradicate the disease, that's a huge win, but if they can't they are just delaying what happened in America.

Aus is an island. The US boarders two countries and has an illegal smuggling problem. The size-to-population isn't even remotely similar, and neither are the rights allowed to the citizens.

English speaking, lots of space, common law..

Yes, but Australia has kangaroos and the Us doesn’t. What does English have to do with COVID—19?

So what country do ou think is more similar culturally to the US, then?

Or is your point just that America is Special and can't be compared to anyone?

Why don't you choose one that has approximately the same population and same population density -- that's why choosing an individual U.S. state might be a better choice because the U.S. is large and has a wide range of population densities.

The key point here is transmission of an infectious disease, so to get a proper comparison, you need to start with approximately the same probabilities of people infecting one another. That begins with proximity. Comparing the U.S. and Australia doesn't work because of that.

Ah yes, because language is the most important reason to get an infectious disease...

Am I here on HN or in r/worldnews?

Maybe they think Coronavirus is caused by the vocal chord parasites from Metal Gear Solid 5

I didn't talk about the probability to get COVID. Just the cultural similarities in general.

Australia has its seasons shifted by half a year, so even if Australia had taken similar measures, I'd expect them to have a lot lower transmission rates because respiratory disease peak in winter. https://www.mja.com.au/sites/default/files/issues/210_10/mja...

1) No evidence that COVID-19 is affected by weather.

2) Australia and US have quite similar temperatures right now given that it’s often moderate in Autumn/Spring.

There is abundant evidence that COVID-19 is affected by weather. [0] There is no evidence that the spread of COVID-19 is halted by weather.

[0] Google Scholar search of “COVID-19 humidity”

And another similar country:

UK deaths per million = 488

This only proves the point. The UK’s response is among the worst in the developed world. Similar to the US’s response.

Per today's RealClearPolitics chart:

US 260 deaths per million

UK 499

France 404

Netherlands 322

Germany (Kudos!) 94.8

The US is not doing badly at all.

South Korea: 5.07 deaths per million Population of ~51 million First case on the same day as us. Democratic government.

This is who we should be comparing ourselves too, not just choosing some random countries that are doing worse than us.

Most of those countries are seeing their death rate decline. US is plateauing.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

Which means the US is on track to at minimum 500+ within the next few months making it the worst country in the world.

Yes, yes it is.

Because a large number of those cases are NYC, which is already on the downside of its curve by a considerable degree, while the US as a whole is still trending upward, meaning that the country outside of NYC is doing pretty poorly.

> The US is not doing badly at all.

Sadly people can’t look past the big absolute number of deaths and attach proper context to it. Like deaths per million, or ignoring that ~half of cases and deaths are restricted to a single metropolitan area.