COVID-19 Update

• In about a week, USAmerica Inc will be over 200,000 dead.
• Before the end of September, the world total will be over 1,000,000 dead

And even as COVID-19 seems to be starting a comeback in the EU, guess what some Europeans are more worried about.

WaPo:

Germans are more afraid of President Trump’s policies than covid-19, study finds

“Only around every third respondent fears that they or someone they know [well] could be infected with the coronavirus,” Brigitte Römstedt, a researcher with Germany’s R&V Versicherung AG, an insurance company that has commissioned the survey since 1992, said in a news release. The survey question also asked about fears of developing other severe illnesses. The survey was conducted in June and July.

The researchers called the low level of concern in the country about being infected with the coronavirus “astonishing.”

Those concerns are far exceeded by fears of Trump’s policies and their impact — with 53 percent of Germans saying they are afraid that his presidency makes the world a more dangerous place.

Germany has suffered its most abrupt economic downturn since World War II, but its coronavirus caseload remains relatively low compared with that of other countries. Germany has recorded at least 9,347 deaths, compared with more than 30,800 in France and over 41,600 in Britain.

“The Germans have in no way reacted to the pandemic in panic,” Römstedt said in the release.

The German survey’s annual index — which indicates whether Germans are overall more or less afraid than the previous year — fell to its lowest level since the survey was first commissioned three decades ago.

Concerns over the economic impact of the crisis have been on the rise, however, with more Germans saying they fear rising costs of living and a higher unemployment level.

Researchers have warned that countries with less severe first waves of the virus may be less attuned to the risks posed by covid-19 than residents of harder-hit nations. They cautioned that a lack of concern could lead to complacency and a rise in infections. Those warnings appeared to be validated when infection numbers rose over the past month — after the R&V survey was conducted. More recently, however, German infection numbers have plateaued, even as they continued to rise in France and other European Union countries.