Giving Compass' Take:
- German Lopez uses death rates in other wealthy nations to extrapolate what the American COVID-19 death toll might have looked like if more stringent containment measures had been taken.
- How can the United States and the rest of the world use lessons from 2020 to prepare for future pandemics? What work still needs to be done in order to ensure that the global community responds quickly and effectively to emergent infectious disease outbreaks in the coming decades?
- Read about how philanthropists can address racial equity when responding to the pandemic.
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Despite Covid-19 surges in Europe, the United States of America’s extraordinary death toll remains among the worst in the developed world. As of January 9, 2021, nearly 373,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US, with a death rate of more than 1.1 per 1,000 people, according to Our World in Data.
While there are nations with higher death rates, this still puts the US in the top 20 percent for deaths among the world’s developed countries, with more than twice the death rate of the median developed country.
Some numbers to put that in perspective:
- If the US had the same death rate as the European Union overall, nearly 79,000 Americans who died of Covid-19 would likely still be alive (unless they died of other causes).
- If the US had the same death rate as Canada, nearly 225,000 Americans who died of Covid-19 would likely still be alive.
- If the US had the same death rate as Japan, nearly 363,000 Americans who died of Covid-19 would likely still be alive — and fewer than 10,000 Americans would have died of the disease.
Read the full article about COVID-19 death tolls among wealthy nations by German Lopez at Vox.