It is still shocking that the death rate due to COVID-19 remains high in America compared with other countries. This raises questions as to why this world’s biggest economy hasn’t managed to reduce mortality.
Consider a number of factors. It is probable that the US has a higher death rate due to differences in vaccine rates. America’s less widely-adopted vaccines can lead to more serious illness and death.
In June the US overtook Britain as the G7 nation most severely affected by COVID deaths, on a per capita basis. It has retained this title since.
According to DailyMail.com’s analysis of data from Our World in Data, the US has experienced an average of about 3.8 deaths by COVID per million people every day since November 1. This is more than twice the UK rate which was 1.8.
This has been true even though the UK’s COVID cases rates soared well beyond US levels during the Omicron surge.
According to DailyMail.com, the US averages 3.8 deaths from COVID per million people every day since November 1. This is more than twice the UK’s rate of 1.8.
Despite the fact that the Omicron variant has taken hold in the US, the UK has not seen an increase in per-capita cases. However, deaths are still on the rise.
Since June 2016, the UK has had a higher vaccination rate than the US, surpassing them by 5%.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seen with U.S. President Joe Biden in Glasgow, Scotland last month
The simple fact that Omicron deaths are slower than those of new cases could explain this. It may also be an indicator that Omicron is less likely to cause severe disease and death that previous variants.
The difference in deaths has existed for a while and can’t be explained entirely by Omicron prevalence variations, which is more common in the UK than the US. Experts say Omicron causes milder symptoms and spreads earlier than Delta.
Tuesday’s admission by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was a sign of serious inaccuracy in the calculation of the variant prevalence. It overestimated mid-December’s figure by 50 percentage points, causing confusion and resulting in new case records.
A revised chart was released by the agency on Tuesday. It showed that this variant represented 23 percent of all COVID-19-related cases during the week ending December 18. This compares to the original report’s 73 percent.
According to the chart, the Omicron variant was responsible for 59% of new cases during the week ended December 25th. This means that Omicron has been accounting more infections for Delta than originally thought. However Omicron is rapidly gaining in popularity.
The new variant was found in England several weeks before the US. According to data from UK Health Security Agency, it made up 92 percent to zero of all cases during the week leading to December 27.
A variety of variables could explain why there are so many deaths between the countries, including differences in vaccine rates and general health.
61.9% of Americans are fully vaccinated versus 70.4 percent in the UK.
It is approximately 29 million Americans that are not currently vaccinated. But, if America matched Britain’s rate of vaccine adoption, this would make a significant difference.
The US overall is less healthy than the UK, having a lower death rate from heart disease and diabetes prevalence.
One indicator that Britain has a better overall health standard is its 81.3-year life expectancy (pre-pandemic) compared to the US’ 78.9.
Others potential demographic factors such as urban living rates and age don’t seem to play a role.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the number of Americans who have died has exceeded 820,000. Sixty-two percent of Americans have not been fully immunized.
There have been 148.089 cases of covid-related death in the UK since the beginning of the pandemic. The UK has 70% of its population fully vaccinated.
Around 83 per cent of Americans lived in cities in 2020.
This is comparable to UK where 83.9 percent of the population was urbanized. It suggests that increased mortality rates are not caused by denser living arrangements.
America’s median age is 38.1 years, compared to 40.5 in the UK. This means that America is less susceptible to serious illness because of its older population.
The case fatality ratio, which is the proportion of COVID-infected people who die due to the disease, is another key statistic.
The case fatality rate for the US, UK, and average wealth nations was roughly equal before April. That means the virus infected roughly the exact same amount of people in all three countries.
In May, however, there was a shocking trend: the UK’s case fatality rate fell below that of wealthy countries, while the US rate rose above it.
In April the UK and USA have seen sharp differences in their case fatality rates, which is the number of COVID-infected people who die from the disease.
This trend has remained steady since then, and it is not surprising that this shift occurs during the same period as vaccines were widely available in both countries.
The failure of public health officials to get Americans to take vaccines has led to President Joe Biden’s stricter mandates.
The UK and US excess mortality rates have remained nearly identical, which is a puzzlement. This refers to an increase in deaths beyond what is expected based on averages from previous years.
The US excess mortality rate (13.3%) was lower than that of the UK (16.8%) in early November.
This may indicate that COVID might be more likely to cause death in people who are otherwise expected to die soon.
One puzzling fact is that the UK’s excess mortality rate and the US’s have been roughly equal.
Since August, the US has had a higher death rate than any other G7 countries.
The UK’s low death rates are not an isolated achievement among rich nations.
Per capita deaths per day were fairly spread among developed countries in the Group of Seven for the first year of this pandemic. Japan was the only exception to the rule.
Others in G7 saw their death rates rise as virus attacks came and went, each country in turn surpassing the other in this grim statistic.
However, the daily deaths in G7 countries converged to less than 1 starting in July.
The US pulled away one month later and, with the exception of a challenge by Germany in early May, is still at the top of the death toll.