Global comparisons showing the United States has mismanaged the pandemic – uniquely among developed countries – keep piling up.
White House press briefings now feature graphs and charts in its attempt to fool some of the people most of the time. The chart, above, is one they are yet to display. It shows the USA now has 121.2 deaths per million inhabitants. This has just broken through another barrier today. It is now twenty times higher than the average of the death rates of all other advanced nations outside Europe.
Comparing like with like
Worldometers allows comparisons of infections and deaths between no fewer than 212 geographic locations. In this list, the USA ranks 13th on deaths per million, from highest to lowest. Not bad.
But wait. This list includes two cruise ships and the Vatican City, population 801, and the Falkland Islands, population 3,480. San Marino, which tops the Worldometers list of deaths per million, has fewer than 34,000 residents.
Questions about China’s data abound, and much of the developing world, particularly in Africa, simply cannot provide quality data on health outcomes.
So for valid comparisons, we need a better list. Fortunately, the United Nations Development Program has identified 61 countries which have “high human development” and 62 with “very high human development”. (Other categories are “medium” and “low”.)
If we take the very high development group minus the tiny city-states we have a workable list of 51 wealthy, advanced nations with above one million people. All have strong health care systems and data we may presume reliable. (Although this is an assumption.) This list includes all G7 countries, all NATO members except Albania and most OECD members.
Of this group, the USA ranks tenth. Also not bad. But a cursory look reveals some intriguing things. The top twenty are 18 European nations plus the USA and Canada. None from Asia, where the pandemic originated, nor from any other region. Further, the top seven all have open land borders with France or Belgium. Or a tunnel.
Italy the early epicentre
The significance of this is that in early February, Italy realised it had a major outbreak of infections in the Lombardy region. But by then thousands of infected visitors had driven or hitch-hiked or taken a bus or train to neighbouring countries. Six are only a few hours drive away.
The rest of the developed world watched Italy’s calamity aghast and implemented preventative measures including restrictions on air travel from Europe. Well, most did. Canada and the USA did not. Not until far too late.
We can show clearly the differences in deaths in these two theatres by charting the 31 European and 20 non-European countries separately.
Mr Trump is by all means welcome to compare the USA with Europe, if he wishes. (See photo from Friday’s press briefing.) But the USA is not in Europe. So he should also examine the chart, at the top here, comparing countries many thousands of miles distant from Italy and Wuhan.
Bad and getting worse
The US is not just an outlier, but an outlier by a huge margin. That gap is increasing. We saw here on 8th April that the USA had 33 deaths per million which was 16 times higher than the average of the other twenty countries. The multiple is now 20.9.
How, then, do we explain this?
“The United States has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country, with the possible exception of Germany. And I think we’re as good or better.”
~ Donald Trump, White House press briefing, 18th April.