So here's the deal on this virus

[Burney]

I agree with your point re: methodology and drawing conclusions.

What countries had an 'earlier' and more severe lockdown that we're comparing similarly to?

France tracks similarly to us and went into a much more severe lockdown a week before us.
Italy and Spain are obviously worse and went into strict lockdown even earlier.
Belgium went into lockdown a week before us and is the worst of the lot.

So this is not about when or how you went into lockdown.