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The Daily

Why Europe Is Flattening the Curve (and the U.S. Isn’t)

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As it became clear that Europe was heading into another deadly wave of the coronavirus, most of the continent returned to lockdown. European leaders pushed largely similar messages, asking citizens to take measures to protect one another again, and governments offered broad financial support. Weeks later, the effort seems to be working and infection rates are slowing. In several parts of the United States, it’s a different story. In the Midwest, which is experiencing an explosion of cases similar to that seen earlier in Europe, leaders have not yet managed to come up with a coherent approach to loosen the virus’s grip. Is it too late for America to learn the lessons from Europe? Guests: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, who covers the European Union for The New York Times, and Mitch Smith, a national correspondent for The Times based in the Midwest. We want to hear from you. Fill out our survey about The Daily and other shows at: nytimes.com/thedailysurvey. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Much of Europe went back into lockdown late last month to try to stop the spread of the virus and ease the strain on hospitals.After weeks of warnings that cases were again on the rise, a third surge of coronavirus infection has firmly taken hold in the United States.As cases grow, the pandemic is becoming so widespread in the United States that every American will know someone who has been infected.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:25.6

From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro.

0:32.6

This is a Daily.

0:40.6

Today, the United States and Europe have approached the second wave of the coronavirus

0:46.9

in profoundly different ways.

0:49.6

My colleagues, Matina Stavis-Gridneff and Mitch Smith on what those two responses look

0:56.4

like.

0:59.4

It's Tuesday, November 17.

1:05.0

Matina, you cover Europe for the times and are based in Belgium.

1:09.0

So tell us about how the governments of Europe are responding to this second wave of the

1:14.7

coronavirus.

1:15.7

Well, Michael, I think by mid-October, the writing was on the wall that the second wave that

1:22.5

everyone had feared would eventually arrive was with us.

1:27.3

We were seeing exponential increases in cases, hospitals were getting saturated.

1:33.0

The reason for that is that in Europe, we had a horrible first wave followed by very

1:38.3

strict lockdowns, which led us into the beautiful European summer where people were able to

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