First, it was the UK, with the 'immunity of the herd'. Then it was the US, with Trump calling the severity of the spread as 'fake news'. Sweden and Germany were also slow to respond - Sweden is yet to take any strict measures. But data show that countries taking strict measures early on, like South Korea and Greece, have fewer incidents and are (or already have) passed the spread turning point. Let's see the charts (data are as of April 14th).

Early measures did work

South Korea and Greece are two countries where strict measures were taken by local governments, to limit spread of the virus among their population.

At the peak of the spread, 21-day moving average just passed 1.4 new incidents per million.

Italy and Spain are the two drama queens. They were both slow to take strict measures to detain the spread, and when they did, it was quite late. Although it looks that both have now passed the tipping point, the 21-day moving average went up to over 16 incidents for Italy, and close to 30 incidents for Spain per million. Although images from Italy were making the most dramatic news, it was Spain that was hit harder, during the crisis.

Two other countries that were slow to take measures to detain the virus, were Germany and Sweden - in fact Sweden is yet to take any strict measures to detain the spread.

Although Germany's graph looks like the graph of Spain, Germany did take eventually strict measures when incidents passed the 10 incidents per million of population in the 21-day moving average, eventually stopping at 12 incidents per million. Sweden is slowly approaching to the 10 new incidents per million mark, with no signs of detention.

Where things have gone completely out of control, is where governments acted too late to make any actual difference. In the US and the UK, the virus is spreading and killing hundreds of people each day.

In the US, new incidents in the 21-day moving average have already surpassed 16 incidents per million and in the UK new incidents just crossed 13 new incidents per million. The difference of the US with Italy - which also touched the 16 new incidents per million mark - is that the 16 million mark in Italy was touched during stabilisation of the spread, while in the US, there is no sign of detention.

This is seen clearly when all these four countries are put together in the same graph:

It's sad when politicians are playing scientists and running experiments on the back of the people who voted for them...