Cases are a difficult metric because there's a selection bias. Most places, including the US, does not have adequate testing. Especially for a virus we suspect a significant amount of people to show no symptoms. We're mostly testing those that are hospitalized.
Deaths, on the other hand, are easier (but not perfectly) to count because it is much more clear that someone has died. The symptoms are trivially obvious. The difficulty here is that there is no universal attribution (even within the US) as to what constitutes a covid death. Let's show a tricky example. Let's say an elderly patient had a stroke and are in the hospital. You THEN get infected and die. Did you die from the stroke or covid? Is this as deadly as a disease that kills a healthy 60 year old? How do we distinguish this?
I'm just trying to say that without context these simple comparisons can miss a lot of nuance of the reality of the situation. The thing here is that there are a significant number of variables at play and without discussing those variables you can get inaccurate results.
I agree, that's why I published the table and anyone can comment (in Notion itself), therefore contribute. I think such a comparison can at the very least spark the discussion you mention.
Deaths, on the other hand, are easier (but not perfectly) to count because it is much more clear that someone has died. The symptoms are trivially obvious. The difficulty here is that there is no universal attribution (even within the US) as to what constitutes a covid death. Let's show a tricky example. Let's say an elderly patient had a stroke and are in the hospital. You THEN get infected and die. Did you die from the stroke or covid? Is this as deadly as a disease that kills a healthy 60 year old? How do we distinguish this?
I'm just trying to say that without context these simple comparisons can miss a lot of nuance of the reality of the situation. The thing here is that there are a significant number of variables at play and without discussing those variables you can get inaccurate results.