How Excess Mortality Compares

A new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has highlighted deaths from Covid-19 in the United States and 18 other developed countries, along with excess all-cause mortality so far in 2020. Referring specifically to Covid-19, the U.S. had 60.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants between February 13, 2020 and September 19, 2020. That is higher than many other countries in the analysis such as Germany (11.3) and Canada (24.6) while it is lower than a handful such as Belgium (86.8) and the UK (62.6). When it comes to the impact of Covid-19 since June 07, however, the U.S. is far ahead of all other countries in the analysis with 27.2 deaths per 100,00 people while Belgium had just 4.2.

What about excess mortality? Deaths in the U.S. this year have been 85 percent higher than some developed countries such as Germany, Israel and Denmark, adjusting for population size. The study looked at the point countries surpasses one case per million inhabitants through to July 25, 2020 compared to the same weeks in the period from 2015 to 2019. In that case, the U.S. had 71.6 deaths per 100,000 people compared to 102.2 deaths in Spain, 94.5 in the UK, 67.8 in Belgium, 51.5 in France, 13.3 in Canada and 10.0 in Germany. When those figures are taken from May 10, the United States has a significantly higher death toll than all countries in the analysis with 31.2 excess deaths per 100,000 people compared to Sweden (which has been criticized for avoiding a full lockdown) which has 14.9.