## 2 Data Selection and Approach  
One of the potential problems with analyzing the time evolution of the spread of the CoV-19 virus is that the number of new infections is often taken as the basis for such statements, but it is questionable whether this is the best way to monitor what is happening and what may eventuate. In the present work, which spans the timeframe 10 March until 24 April 2020, we present a discussion starting from what should be considered the more reliable data (to be discussed below), even though uncertainties always remain. We focus on a number of West European countries, including those that are heavily suffering from COVID-19. Although Italy had the misfortune to be first in line when CoV-19 reached Europe, it could have served as an early warning for other nations. However, next to Italy, multiple countries have had a relatively large number of deceased compared to their population size, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Based on the number of deceased per inhabitant over the course of time (or mortality), the outbreak in Spain, France, and the Netherlands, to name a few, was in essence as heavy as in Italy. On the contrary, Germany had, relatively speaking, significantly fewer deaths from CoV-19. This is also true of Austria. We will not discuss the possible reasons for these differences; this stage of the disease does not permit detailed comparative analyses since the available data consist of the number of infected patients in different geographic areas with different social, political, and economic structures [5]. Statements on whether the effects of the virus slow down can only be made on sufficient and proper data. All of the data used in this paper were taken from the publications on the website of the Berliner Morgenpost [8], with the data on that site originating from John Hopkins University [9], the German Robert Koch Institute (RKI) [10], and the various health organizations in the different regions of Germany (see the RKI reference [10]). The collected data can also be found on the WHO site [11] or that of the ECDC (European Center for Disease Prevention and Control) [12]. The data published comprise (i) number of confirmed infections, (ii) number of people reported healed, and (iii) number of people deceased. The _number of confirmed cases_, i.e., the number of people _tested_ positive, is highly dependent on the number of tests performed in each individual country, and this varies largely. Several news agencies reported on the low number of tests in the Netherlands, e.g., the live-blog coronavirus of the Dutch newspaper Het Parool at 13:45, 1 April 2020, reported: 'Germany carries out 70,000 tests per day, whereas in the Netherlands this number was as low as about 1000 tests per day.' On 1 April, there were less than 13,000 persons who had tested positive in the Netherlands, whereas more than a thousand had died, implying that the mortality resulting from corona infections was about the same as in Italy and Spain [13]. A mortality rate of 2%-3% has recently been reported [2], suggesting that for European countries this was also a clear indication that testing was, thus far, inadequate. [PERSON]. [PERSON], a professor of epidemiology at Stanford University, has branded the data we have about the epidemic \"utterly unreliable\". \"We don't know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300,\" he wrote recently [14]. A recent study on data from Iceland support this view [15]. Data from Iceland, a relatively isolated country, are ideal for specific studies and revealed that, whereas there was much more testing than elsewhere (5% of the population was tested, whereas for other countries this was 0.1% or often less), around 50% of those tested positive had no symptoms at all. Moreover, Iceland's strategy does not include a lock-down but extensive testing and contact tracing, enhanced by a very aggressive policy of quarantine for individuals that are or might be infected.