Sure, but it remains misleading “whataboutery”. It’s not helpful, informative, or even really honest to go “BUT NO1 CARES ABOUT FLU!” (as some people have been, including some people who have been trying to suggest we don’t need to do anything), because:
A) They sure as fuck do. I can’t speak for Austria, but the NHS is extremely aggressive with flu vaccinations (I have very mild asthma, and they will not stop bothering me until I get a vaccination each year) and is built around preparedness for flu season.
B) This isn’t flu, which is something we’re well-prepared for and which has a significantly lower likelihood of causing death based on everything we know (it also impacts different groups, demographically).
They don’t follow the same criteria in Germany (can probably get a source later if needed), I don’t know about France.
That’s part of the problem with the whole thing. No-one is following the same criteria as each other. The UK is only testing hospitalized cases, which makes our infected numbers artificially lower. Italy is doing a number of different kinds of testing, so it’s hard to say if it’s 8% death rate is really reflective of only testing the most extreme cases (they’re definitely doing more than just that, I note), or some kind of systemic problem. In South Korea they’ve been extremely aggressive (and disturbingly doxx-y) with their testing, so the rate is lower.
I suspect the real death rate will, in ten years, when all the analyses and meta-analyses are done, be pretty similar in all modern countries (including China).
South London here and unfortunately the supermarkets have entirely displaced the good kind of corner stores in my area, most of them having been wiped out by Sainsburys (this was not the case when I lived in, say, Hackney). And those are now empty. The few corner stores and cultural/ethnic stores are better-stocked, for sure, but still out of everything we’ve been looking for.
However, my wife tells me Poundland and Iceland actually restocked this morning, and whilst missing a lot of stuff entirely, did have some food in them at least. Also even last night Aldi had actually restocked a bit. Tesco, Sainsbury, even M&S though? Wipeout. The giant Tesco near me was literally unbelievable, it was just gone. People had bought every bit of rando food they had. Tesco must be kind of quietly wetting themselves with joy. Stuff that definitely wouldn’t get sold at all before expiring normally, was just totally gone.
