Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Some of you know that, on this show, I've been periodically comparing the number of new COVID deaths in the United States with a number in the five main Western European countries that we tend to compare ourselves to. Until now, the point has been to show that Europe was doing way better than us at controlling the virus, while President Trump and his allies were encouraging too much re-opening, and so, it wasn't going away, but this time will be different. Europe is close to catching up with us. Bear with me through some numbers, I think I can make this very clear.

The US has about the same population as these five countries in Western Europe combined, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This isn’t apples-to-apples comparison in that way more or less, roughly the same total populations. For the weekend in, September 1st, the US had more than 800 coronavirus deaths a day, while the West European countries had only 70. More than 800 deaths a day here compared to 70 among all those countries combined at the beginning of September, we talked about that at the time. Last week, the US still had around 800 COVID deaths a day, and the West European nations had 600, they're pretty close to catching up with us.

One big difference over these last few months is that our death rate never went down, nearly as low as Europe’s did. Our country's actions do seem to have cost many Americans their lives, and certainly compared to Europe, but about what's happening right now, given the spike in new cases taking place in the United States in the last few weeks, we expect to see the death rate rise here as well, but Europe seems to be ahead of us on this latest wave. The easy comparison of good job Europe, bad job US, is looking harder to make.

With that as prologue, maybe you saw the news over the weekend that a number of Western European countries are now imposing new restrictions and shutdowns, which range from curfews to travel restrictions and more. Joining me now to talk about how different countries there are tackling the spikes in cases and how they compare to the responses in the United States, Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post columnist and author of Today's WorldView, the Post's international affairs newsletter. Hi, Ishaan, thanks for some time today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Ishaan Tharoor: Hi, Brian, pleasure to be here again.

Brian: Listeners, we'll open up the phones right away. To our listeners in Europe and with connections to Europe, how is the country that you are in or that you have connections to, tackling the rise in coronavirus cases, and our citizens approaching the restrictions as a way to flatten the curve ahead of the holiday season, or most people you're talking to bristling at these new restrictions?

Listeners, 646-435-7280 if you're in or have connections to any European country, 646-435-7280. Ishaan, what's going on, big picture? Why is this spiking in Western Europe now, when we used to look over there and test our own government in comparison?

Ishaan: Absolutely. What we're seeing right now is, we all knew a second wave was going to come. Leaders and public health officials in Europe knew a second wave was going to come. No one expected to be this severe and accelerating at the rate that it is. What has clearly happened and, as you said in your excellent prologue, half a year ago, various European countries, especially places like Italy and Spain, implemented these really severe lockdowns, lockdowns that have never happened in the United States, restrictions on movement, restrictions on travel, really clamping down on the spread of the virus then.

A lot of these countries in Europe thought they'd won themselves something of reprieve. While we're sitting here in in quarantine gloom in the US, and uncertainty, Europe had a relatively normal summer. There was travel, there was tourism, people were partying, there wasn't particularly widespread mask wearing as well. Now, they are paying the consequences off that summer.

What especially we're seeing right now, what is particularly worrying, is that a lot of European countries did not use the time they had bought themselves to scale up in testing, to build more sophisticated and capable contact-tracing infrastructures, to strengthen their hospital systems for a second wave. We're right now- as you just pointed the numbers we're in, especially in some countries, really dire streets already. Beyond the five major countries, we're looking at places like Belgium, which leads the world in deaths per capita, I believe.

We're looking at situations there where they're running out of hospital beds already, where their testing infrastructure is totally overwhelmed, where they're running out of-- Because of shortages to essential workers there, they're seeing gaps in having even enough police on the streets. We're seeing all these kind of spiraling, cascading effects already hit at a rate and in a kind of accelerated way that we weren't anticipating.

Brian: Before we go to some callers, and we're getting callers with connections to a number of countries, what I think I hear you saying is, they locked down harder than we did in the spring. That caused the case rate to really drop very low, but that also made them feel they could reopen much more broadly than we have at any point, and now they're paying the price.

Ishaan: Pretty much. Of course, it is difficult to draw a blanket understanding of this, each of the countries employ a patchwork of their own restrictions and measures, and it varies case by case. Absolutely, the US did not, and many people probably wish the US had taken the same approach as some of these European countries in March, in April, but as we've seen, there is no panacea to this pandemic. Perhaps the countries that remain the leaders in all this are not in Europe, but in East Asia.

Places like Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, which have really robust testing infrastructures in place, have a lot of public buying into following protocols for caution, wearing masks, and so on. Those countries so far, are leading the world, not the European ones at any point. In terms of preventing and ensuring, they don't see the worst of a second wave.

Brian: We're getting a call from London. Let's take it. Cindy in London, you're on WNYC. Hello, from New York, Cindy.

Cindy: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian: Good. How are you? How are things?

Cindy: Hello, can you hear me?

Brian: Yes. Can you hear me?

Cindy: Oh, very good. Yes, I can. Sorry [chuckles] about that. I've just been here for a long time. I used to originally live in New Jersey, and now I'm living in London. I just wanted to call and just kind of-- Heard you guys talking about the second wave in Europe and everything, and I wanted to just share how things are from London. Basically, right now, in the UK, in certain parts of- let's say in Wales, there's curfews and there's limits on what you can sell. In the UK, in London, it seems like the government has been giving a lot of mixed messages, encouraging people to go out and eat, and then, telling them not to go out.

You saw a lot in the summer, I was telling the screener that people threw-- It's like if COVID was in the back of their mind. Standing six-feet apart, that was going out the window, people were out partying, out in the park. I understand people enjoy the weather, but just seems like everything was forgotten. Then, as a comparison, right now, certain parts in the UK, for example, Manchester's under two or three lockdown. It’s technically like London, but it's not as restrictive as it originally was.

By comparison, in Dublin, where I used to live before coming to London, right now they're in a stricter lockdown, and it's going to be for five weeks. They want to do lockdown before Christmas, to have everything, because they know people are going to travel and they know people are going to be with a scene with families in Christmas. They want to carve there, but yes, it's just-- I don't know, sometimes I see the way that the UK is handling it and they're not as bad as the US, but it's getting there.

Brian: Yes. Is it the patchwork that you think is so bad, is it the different areas are doing it differently, or is it really mixed messages within the same areas?

Cindy: A lot of other people have been saying here, it just allows people have been going like the government is gaslighting them in certain respects by making them feel like things are getting better, and and then they go out and they let their guard down a little bit, and then you have cases surging. To me, at least from my see, it just seems like mixed messages, honestly [unintelligible 00:10:16] from the government.

Brian: Thank you so much for checking in. Ishaan Tharoor from The Washington Post, I see you recently wrote across Britain, a patchwork of different gradations of lockdowns has stoked confusion and anger. Cindy could have been one of your sources.

Ishaan: Indeed, and you are seeing not just in the UK, but in various other parts of Europe, in France, in Spain, in Italy, a kind of fatigue and exacerbation you did not see, of course, half a year ago. What is now being implemented over this past week over this weekend, within Spain invoked a national emergency, their curfews in France and Italy, you're seeing resistance, a kind of resistance you did not see in the past.

That is a source of concern because, especially at the rates with which we're seeing infection spread and the numbers pile up, politicians may need to impose once more the same blanket measures they did in the past, and there's going to be much more popular discontent about that.

Brian: We have calls coming in from Portugal and Switzerland and elsewhere. We'll continue in a minute and see what we can learn here from the new lockdowns or patchwork of various restrictions as COVID surges again in Europe with Ishaan Tharoor from The Washington Post, and you on the phone, stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we're talking about how different countries in Europe are tackling the new spikes in coronavirus cases over there and what we can learn for this country, with Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post columnist and author of Today's WorldView, The Post's international affairs newsletter, and we're inviting calls from anybody in Europe, or anybody with connections to any particular European country. 646-435-7280. Courtney in Portugal, you're on WNYC. Hello from New York, Courtney, thank you for calling us.

Courtney: Thanks. I'm such a fan.

Brian: That's good.

Courtney: I listen everyday.

Brian: I'm so glad. What are you seeing? What are you experiencing?

Courtney: They did really well in the beginning in March, and they shut down the country pretty early, and we had very strict lockdown. There were times when we couldn't leave the area, the town that we live in. Then, of course, summer, people wanted to be at the beach, they were out. They traveled and numbers went up. Who knows if it was people visiting Portugal from outside of the country, or if it just spread internally, but numbers are going up.

It's not nearly as bad as Spain and France and everywhere else, but the thing to remember here is, we have the fewest ICU beds per capita in Europe, so it's a big deal. We really have to keep the numbers down or we won't be able to control the health system.

Brian: How hard is the lockdown now?

Courtney: They're limiting the amount of people who can hang out together to five. We're going to have another nationwide lockdown starting on Friday. They've been timing them with different holidays, so the holiday coming up is All Saints Day. They don't want people congregating at cemeteries, which they usually do to mourn the dead, celebrate the dead. From Friday until Tuesday, we're not allowed to leave our town again, unless you have a work requirement or school.

Brian: That's intense. Courtney, thank you so much for checking in with us. Call again. Some tweets we're getting. Joseph writes, "We move from New York City to Poland in August. Upon arrival, everything was open, numbers going up, new restrictions, everyone wearing masks." Raul tweets, "I live in Munich, the cases per 100,000 people is now above 100. We have different levels of emergency." Let's see this tweet, disappeared. Let's see if I can get it back. "Now many counties are above 100, but lockdowns follow automatically, it seems a lot more transparent."

Ishaan, let me turn back to you. With what we just heard from Portugal, and that tweet from Munich, it indicates that, like in the spring, if there are these big outbreaks in various European countries again, that they are going to lockdown again, in many cases more intensely than what we're talking about in the United States, as our spike returns.

Ishaan: Possibly, although what we've seen so far, even in places like Spain, where they've invoked a national emergency, is not a return to what we saw half a year ago, where some of the callers were saying, movement was so drastically curtailed. You could barely walk a block from your own apartment or house, and travel was restricted in so many fronts. We're not seeing a return to that, and we're seeing political resistance in some countries, to the possibility of that happening.

Brian: How would you compare the political resistance in Europe to what we see in the United States, related to whatever we might call the Donald Trump ethos?

Ishaan: Earlier in the year there was nothing like it. Earlier in the year you saw people listening to public health experts, recognizing that this is a time for collective sacrifice and care for your fellow compatriots, and that the government's in charge, were following what they could follow and deal with what would be pragmatic about it. Now, yes, you do see a growing anti-mask movement, you see the proliferation of QAnon style conspiracy theories, you had far right marches in Germany, you've had far-right protests in Italy over the weekend. There is a gathering momentum around anti-establishment politics similar-- Yes?

Brian: I'm just curious if you think that this is related to effects on people's real lives, like they're not able to do business, they're not able to keep their jobs, and so they're rebelling and want the risk benefit balance to be different, or this risk versus that risk balance to be different, or if it's somehow more wackily ideological than that?

Ishaan: No, I think, absolutely, these are countries- much of Europe is already in deep recession. Unemployment has gone up, some of these countries have had robust social safety nets to put a finger in the dike and alleviate some suffering, but absolutely, you're seeing people who are fed up with this, who have lost work, who have had their lives heavily disrupted in various ways. Their resistance to a return to the real lockdowns of half a year ago is there, and then at the same time also, of course, the numbers of deaths have not spiked up yet.

There are arguments that a lot of the the new infections are asymptomatic, that what we're seeing now, the spike is a consequence in part of expanded testing. You have a growing debate about how severe this is and how severe this can be, and that's also filtering into the political conversation as well.

Brian: Lina, in Berlin, you're on WNYC. Hi from New York, Lina.

Lina: Hey, Brian, I'm a big fan. I just wanted to share a few things. I got here at the end of August. I will say coming from California, it was pretty loose. Masks are required, but overall, I saw a lot of people hanging out at the park, in groups. I also wanted to mention, there's been a few anti-mask rallies that have happened. One of them just happened yesterday, actually. There's about 2000 protesters at Alexanderplatz.

We just got a curfew set, so bars and restaurants are going to shut down at 11:00 PM. I do see a change happening, but it's still a little concerning when I'm riding my bike around and just the amount of tourists that I see shopping and still gathering at the cafes. I do hope it changes, but I feel the change that I see it. I just wanted to share that.

Brian: Lina, I I've read about Germany that they're keen to keep workplaces and schools open. They're looking to find restrictions more in the hospitality sector and the travel industry. Do you think that's right?

Lina: Yes. I do think so. I will say I've made a few trips outside of the city, and out in the rural areas, it's still pretty packed. Driving by schools on my bike, I still do see students there, but I do think there's going to be a change now that there is a bigger increase. I think we're at 600 cases per day here.

Brian: Lina, I have to leave it there for time, but thank you so much. In our last minute, and by the way, Lina, thanks for the nice words, and call us again, you quote chancellor Merkel as recently appealing to citizens by saying how winter will be, how our Christmas will be decided in the coming days and weeks. We all decide that through our actions. How much in Europe is actually being aimed at trying to have a normal Christmas by having a lockdown now.

Ishaan: I wouldn't want to overstate it. Obviously, Christmas is a big deal, and this is when a lot of families will see each other and people will make trips through various parts of their countries on the continent to go see each other, and not having that would be a significant blow to public morale. I'm sure you're seeing in Germany already that some of these iconic Christmas markets in various German cities have been canceled or delayed openings, as part of these fears. Yes, of course it's a huge thing.

It's a way in which you imagine your future in the next few months, you put a lot on Christmas. I'm sure a lot of people here in the US were thinking the same way about Thanksgiving. Yes. I think in terms of-- We're in a situation now where a lot of leaders from Merkel to Macron are telling their populations that "Look, we're in this for the long haul and we have to hang in there." Christmas is one of the benchmarks for that sense of a commitment to a sacrifice.

Brian: Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post columnist and author of Today's WorldView, The Post's international affairs newsletter. Ishaan, thank you so much.

Ishaan: Thanks again.

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