I merged a table of COVID-19 data by foreign country with another table of U.S. data by state and the results were startling. When ranked by total deaths, the United Kingdom was first, with 33,186 reported deaths through May 12. Italy was second and New York was third. Six U.S. states were in the top twenty, along with 14 foreign countries. My home state of Massachusetts was in 12th place with 5,315 deaths. China was further down the list with only 4,633 deaths reported.
If I had compared the U.S. as a whole with other countries, that would also be sobering, as the U.S. leads the world with 85,197 reported COVID-19 deaths, more than double that of the UK.
I then merged data for deaths per 100,000 people, a statistic that provides a more meaningful comparison between states/countries with different populations. New York unfortunately ranks first with 140 deaths per 100,000. New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are in the top five, ahead of Spain and Italy. My home state’s 77 deaths per 100,000 is much worse than that of Washington (13 per 100,000) and California (7.5 per 100,000) even though the virus appeared earlier in those two states.
China ranks 160th in this list, with a remarkably low 0.3 deaths per 100,000.