Case Density VS Case Counts

Yesterday, the US had 4,744 Cases of Covid-19 and France had 6,633 cases.  These numbers are pretty close, but the US has a population of 331 million, while France has less than 67 million.  Obviously, every case is concerning; but when you try to compare how different countries are faring, doesn't it make sense to factor in population?  If we have almost five times the population of France, are our similar case counts really equivalent?

I'd love for others to weigh in on the question.  In my opinion, the danger of the growth of the virus is how it grows exponentially.  It grows that way because of the increased opportunity for new cases as more contagious people are in contact with the rest of the country.  That seems a function of density (ie how many contagious people are mixed in with those uninfected.  Because of the population differences, the current status on my sheet shows that France has 99 cases per 1 million people and the US has only 14.3 cases per 1 million.

Current Status
Country	Population	Cases	Cases/1M
Vietnam	97,339,000	61	0.6
Indonesia	264,000,000	172	0.7
South Africa	56,720,000	62	1.1
Argentina	44,270,000	68	1.5
Philippines	104,900,000	187	1.8
New Zealand	4,705,882	12	2.6
Thailand	69,040,000	177	2.6
Australia	25,510,204	177	6.9
Chile	18,050,000	156	8.6
Canada	37,742,000	375	9.9
USA	331,000,000	4,744	14.3
Malaysia	32,366,000	673	20.8
UK	66,440,000	1,543	23.2
Singapore	5,612,000	243	43.3
China	1,439,323,000	80,881	56.2
Germany	83,697,000	7,974	95.3
France	66,990,000	6,633	99.0
South Korea	51,269,000	8,320	162.3
Spain	46,756,000	11,279	241.2
Italy	60,462,000	27,980	462.8

This chart seems to show that the US is doing comparatively much better than other countries, given its population.  Remember that the US was slower to get to pace on testing so it could be that our case count just seems lower, but it's still a good look for us.  We might see even more if we put countries on a common timeline -- how does our 14.3 count compare to other countries on their day 15?  THere are fewer countries at day 15, but here's the chart:

Country	Day 15
USA	14.33
China	14.20
Italy	121.98
South Korea	122.57
Spain	241.23
Germany	69.45
France	67.16
Singapore	43.30

Here, the US is much lower than everyone else who started day 1 on or before we did, with the exception of China.  Remember, China has by far the most cases but also a much higher population of 1.4 Billion.   If we graph the growth of the virus on a common timeline relative to the whole country's population, we get a very different look than my last post.  

(Click here to see the graph in the spreadsheet. )

Here you can see that China and the US are practically flat, while Spain and Italy are still rocketing upwards.  Singapore is higher than the US now because of its small population.  

For those in the US, I hope this is encouraging; but it is still VERY important we do everything we can to slow the growth of the virus. If the US had the same growth rate as Italy now at 465 cases per million, they would be dealing with 154,000 cases -- almost twice the current worldwide count.  Because we have so many people, its even more important we keep this virus as contained as possible.