1.15 pivot_wider()

glimpse(table2)

## Rows: 12
## Columns: 4
## $ country <chr> "Afghanistan", "Afghanistan", "Afghanistan", "Afghanistan", "B…
## $ year    <dbl> 1999, 1999, 2000, 2000, 1999, 1999, 2000, 2000, 1999, 1999, 20…
## $ type    <chr> "cases", "population", "cases", "population", "cases", "popula…
## $ count   <dbl> 745, 19987071, 2666, 20595360, 37737, 172006362, 80488, 174504…

table2 %>%
  pivot_wider(names_from = type, values_from = count)

## # A tibble: 6 × 4
##   country      year  cases population
##   <chr>       <dbl>  <dbl>      <dbl>
## 1 Afghanistan  1999    745   19987071
## 2 Afghanistan  2000   2666   20595360
## 3 Brazil       1999  37737  172006362
## 4 Brazil       2000  80488  174504898
## 5 China        1999 212258 1272915272
## 6 China        2000 213766 1280428583