Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - UC3M


Home page > Asignaturas / Teaching > Economics of European Integration > Readings on Economics of European Integration > The European response to the COVID 19 Economic recession > Coronavirus economic crisis > U.S. and Europe: How Do the Outbreak Patterns Compare?

U.S. and Europe: How Do the Outbreak Patterns Compare?

By Nate Cohn NYT April 2, 2020

Friday 3 April 2020, by Carlos San Juan


The figures suggest that the United States squandered its potential advantages, like two additional weeks of lead time for preparation and a single national government with superior resources. The U.S. response has fallen mainly to state and local authorities, yielding an even less unified response than in Western Europe. Most Western European governments have enacted stringent social-distancing measures that go beyond what has been implemented in much of the United States.

Western Europe appears to have had more success in testing as well. It has conducted at least twice as many tests as the United States, and probably far more. (Much of that European data is out of date, as many nations do not appear to frequently update their published figures on testing).


Follow-up of the site's activity RSS 2.0 | Site Map | Private area | SPIP | Contacto: csm@eco.uc3m.es