The share of Americans killed by COVID-19 found to be 63% higher than any other wealthy, developed nation

Steven Senne/AP

The COVID pandemic continues to expose, for all the world to see, the decay of a falling empire. And so many of these deaths were preventable, were not it for belligerence, conspiracism, and grave mistrust of all institutions. These are dark days. U.S. has far higher COVID death rate than other wealthy countries - 

Two years into the pandemic, the coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations, a sobering distinction to bear as the country charts a course through the next stages of the pandemic. 

The ballooning death toll has defied the hopes of many Americans that the less severe omicron variant would spare the United States the pain of past waves. Deaths have now surpassed the worst days of the autumn surge of the delta variant, and are more than two-thirds as high as the record tolls of last winter, when vaccines were largely unavailable. 

With American lawmakers desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, as some European leaders have already begun to, the number of dead has clouded a sense of optimism, even as omicron cases recede. And it has laid bare weaknesses in the country’s response, scientists said. 

“Death rates are so high in the States — eye-wateringly high,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has supported loosening coronavirus rules in parts of Britain. “The United States is lagging.” 

Some of the reasons for America’s difficulties are well known. Despite having one of the world’s most powerful arsenals of vaccines, the country has failed to vaccinate as many people as other large, wealthy nations. Crucially, vaccination rates in older people also lag behind certain European nations. 

The United States has fallen even further behind in administering booster shots, leaving large numbers of vulnerable people with fading protection as omicron sweeps across the country. 

The resulting American death toll has set the country apart — and by wider margins than has been broadly recognized. Since Dec. 1, when health officials announced the first omicron case in the United States, the share of Americans who have been killed by the coronavirus is at least 63% higher than in any of these other large, wealthy nations, according to a New York Times analysis of mortality figures. (Read more) 

Copyright 2022, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here. DONATIONS - click here.