July 02, 2020
The United States and the European Union have comparable population sizes, but the trajectories of their COVID-19 outbreaks have been vastly different. Data recently released by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that while new COVID cases in the EU are 82 percent lower than at the peak in April, the United States recorded over 53,000 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, the largest single day total since the pandemic hit. And while some politicians in the US have ascribed the difference to discrepancies in testing, a close analysis shows that the United States and the EU are conducting roughly the same number of tests per million people. Here's a look at the seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases in the EU and the US since March.
UPDATE: Through July 5, US coronavirus cases have continued to increase. The widening chart:
