Coronavirus COVID-19 charts & data for selected countries (updated at least weekly)

Covid19 confirmed deaths

Covid19 confirmed cases

Covid19 deaths vs population
Grateful thanks to Our World in Data for the total cases, total deaths & deaths/pop charts above. These (and many more) are customisable and interactive on the OWID site.


US, Brazil, India, Mexico, Italy & UK have highest total number of deaths from Covid-19

The US has by far the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the world - an appalling testament to the inadequacy of Donald Trump's presidency.

Italy has now (13 Dec) overtaken the UK in having the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.


US President-elect Biden pledges COVID-19 task force

In his victory speech on 7 November, President-elect Biden said that his first priority was to address the pandemic - "Our work begins with getting COVID under control .. I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisors to help take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on January 20 2021. That plan will be built on a bedrock of science. It will be constructed out of compassion, empathy, and concern. I will spare no effort — or commitment — to turn this pandemic around."


Why should the US, UK and Brazil have amongst the worst outcomes from the pandemic?

Apart from different national issues they share some basic common factors:

  • Right-wing administrations with an ideological antipathy towards political establishments and public services
  • Public health organisations that have been neglected and underfunded in recent years
  • Lack of preparation for a major epidemic leading to shortages of equipment and protection for staff
  • Lack of decisive action to implement social distancing and lockdown at an early stage leading to wider spread of the virus
  • White, male, populist leaders (Donald Trump, Boris Johnson & Jair Bolsonaro) who have been reluctant to adopt anti-virus measures and eager to lift lockdown restrictions.

President Trump's deranged comments about UV light & injecting disinfectant and deliberate misinformation probably go some way to explaining the US experience.
These articles from the Guardian - 100 days, privatisation-1, privatisation-2 and from the Daily Mail look at possible explanations in the UK.
This presentation from The Brazilian Report gives some of President Bolsonaro's responses to the rising death toll in Brazil.
President López Obrador of Mexico has different politics but he has shown a similar reluctance to use masks and a similar enthusiasm to lift lockdown restrictions.

This article from Scientific American, Masks and Emasculation, considers the reluctance of male political leaders to promote the use of masks in public.

This report from Columbia University examines the extremely high number of avoidable deaths in the US compared to other high income countries.

This article from The Conversation, Are individualistic societies worse at responding to pandemics? considers the influence of social culture on the spread of Covid-19.


Charts, data & news sources (all open in new windows)

UK: US: Brazil and Mexico: Worldwide: