It's the difference between countries that are being factual (like Greece) and countries where the physicians are being pressured either politically or financially to inflate the number of COVID deaths.

In the US they're cooking the books to get that sweet guaranteed Federal money. The unintended consequence of that assistance cash is that it's massively inflating the numbers and politicians are using that as leverage to "keep us safe".

There is no bigger lie than "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

Sweden is the most interesting case, in part because the conservative media is reporting that they didn't close anything and the liberal media is ignoring it entirely.

The reality is that Sweden has done a more targeted response than anyone else and the results are exactly the same as extreme quarantine measures--because such measures simply don't work.

Some things of note:

1. Sweden closed schools for older children, because they claim that there are studies younger kids don't spread SARS-CoV-2 as much.
2. Restaurants and other services are still open but with the requirements that they limit the number of patrons and move tables farther apart. Bars no longer have shoulder-to-shoulder seating.
3. They put up shielding at point-of-sales long before anyone else.

What this essentially illustrates is that we wrecked our economy for absolutely no reason. I'm starting to suspect based on the data that "flattening the curve" didn't matter a single ounce. Given the antibody tests from LA county, NY, and NJ (ignoring the Stanford study from Santa Clara due to procedural issues), it's quite apparent that the penetration of the virus into communities is about an order of magnitude greater than testing indicates. Add to this the results from the USS Roosevelt and the 3300 inmates tested from various prisons, and the story appears to be that asymptomatic cases occur in 60%+ of the younger populations less than 30.

We should have isolated older people and put our efforts toward either grocery delivery or closing stores in the morning hours to anyone under 60 until this blew over. Combined with drug therapies, this would've had a very limited effect. Yes, potentially more people would have died, but Sweden's figures are bringing this into question as to whether it would've been statistically significant or not.

Also, Sweden's median age is 40.9 years versus the median age in the US of 38.2 This means that more of their population is older, on average, than ours. While they have more deaths per million from COVID-19 (225 vs 170 as of this writing) it's not the dramatic outcome one might expect.

The quarantines did nothing.

Piemonte Italy (state/province) is giving out Hydroxychloroquine for free in their pharmacies.

Imagine how much calmer these people feel when they are in control of getting a FREE treatment that is clearly useful. Over here, your family Doctor isn't even allowed to prescribe it when you have symptoms - hospital only.