US has much higher Covid death rate than other wealthy countries

Two years into the pandemic, the death rate for Americans from coronavirus is far higher than for people in other wealthy countries. This is an intolerable difference as the country progresses through the next phase of the pandemic.

Soaring death tolls have defied many American hopes that a less severe Omicron variant would spare the United States the pain of past waves. day and more than two-thirds of the record number of deaths last winter, when vaccines were scarcely available.

As some European leaders have already begun, US lawmakers are desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, and even as the Omicron case rolls back, the death toll is clouding any sense of optimism. And that has exposed weaknesses in the country’s response, scientists said.

Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said the death rate is “very high, eye-openingly high” in the United States, prompting some parts of the UK to ease coronavirus restrictions. have supported. ‘America is lagging behind’

Some of the reasons for America’s troubles are well known. Despite possessing one of the world’s most powerful vaccine arsenals, the country has not vaccinated as many people as other large and wealthy nations. Importantly, vaccination coverage among older people also lags behind some European countries.

The United States has fallen further behind in administering booster shots, leaving large numbers of vulnerable populations less protected as Omicron sweeps across the country.

The resulting American death toll has set the nation apart by a wider margin than is widely recognized. Since then, the proportion of Americans who have died from coronavirus is at least 63% higher than any of these other large, wealthy nations, according to a New York Times analysis of death rates.

In recent months, the US overtook the UK and Belgium to account for the largest proportion of the population who died from Covid across the pandemic among wealthy nations.

Despite much encouragement from the success other countries have endured in Omicron’s surge, U.S. health leaders have seen markedly different results in the United States. Hospitalization rates in the United States were much higher than in Western Europe, and some states struggled to provide treatment. Americans are now dying of Covid almost twice as fast as Britons and four times as fast as Germans.

Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic are the only European powerhouses to have surpassed America’s Covid death rate this winter, poor countries with a relative lack of the best Covid treatments.

“The United States stands out for its relatively high fatality rate,” said Joseph Diehlmann, an associate professor at the University of Washington who has compared Covid results globally. “There were more losses than anyone wanted or expected.”

The Omicron wave was deadly, but the situation in the United States is far better off than it would have been without the vaccine. The Omicron variant causes no more serious illness than Delta, despite the staggering number of cases. significantly reduced the proportion of Covid patients dying from

In Western Europe, these factors are creating a much more manageable wave. For example, deaths in the UK are one-fifth of their peak last winter, and hospitalizations are about half.

But not in the US. A record number of Americans with the highly contagious variant have filled hospitals in recent weeks, and the average death toll is still he about 2,500 per day.

The main reason is declining national efforts to vaccinate the most vulnerable at levels achieved by more successful European countries.

According to agency statistics, 12% of Americans age 65 and older, who the CDC considers fully vaccinated, received two doses of Moderna or Pfizer-Biontech vaccines, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson. I have not received any of the vaccinations. (Exact numbers are difficult to know, as CDC numbers are inconsistent.)

In addition, 43% of people over the age of 65 have not received a booster dose. Even when fully vaccinated, tens of millions are left unprotected due to the lack of boosters, and some are months past the peak level of immunity provided by a second dose. .

In contrast, only 4% of people aged 65 and over in England are not fully vaccinated and only 9% are not boosted.

“It’s not just about vaccination, it’s about how recent the vaccine is, whether people have been boosted, whether they’ve been infected in the past,” said Lauren Ansel Myers, director of the University of Texas at Austin. -19 Modeling Consortium.

Unvaccinated people make up the majority of hospitalized patients. But older people without booster shots sometimes struggle to shake off the virus, requiring extra oxygen or hospitalization, said Dr. Megan Raney, an emergency physician at Brown University.

In the United States, cases spiked first in northeastern states with high vaccination rates this winter, before moving to states with poorer protection. Scientists said they were concerned that Omicron could cause a particularly high death toll. Poorest Americans are most likely to be unvaccinated and at higher risk of dying from Covid, according to research.

The U.S. Omicron wave has also exacerbated the effects of the delta surge, which had already increased Covid deaths by early December, leaving the U.S. in a more precarious position than many European countries. Even in recent weeks, some American deaths could be attributed to long-term illness caused by Delta.

However, Omicron infections sidelined Delta by late December in the United States.

“These are probably Omicron deaths,” said Robert Anderson, the head of mortality statistics for the CDC’s branch.

Yet, according to scientists, America’s problems began long before Omicron. Americans began dying from Covid at a higher rate than people in Western European countries starting in the summer after the U.S. lagged behind in vaccination. of people died from Covid.

According to Dr. Anderson, by tracking death certificates that list Covid as a cause or contributing factor, the CDC counts only those who have died from Covid and counts those who may have accidentally tested positive. you can avoid it. before dying for unrelated reasons.

It’s too early to tell how bad the US will get in this wave. But some scientists say there are hopeful signs that the gap between the United States and other wealthy nations has begun to narrow.

As Delta and now Omicron hit the United States, so many people became ill, and those who survived have acquired some degree of immunity from past infections.

It’s not clear how strong and long-lasting immunity will be, particularly from Omicron, but Americans may be slowly developing protection from past bouts of Covid that other countries have created through vaccination. I have. American life.

Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said: Referring to mortality rates in America and Europe, he continued.

Still, the United States faces certain major disadvantages, which experts fear could pose problems in future waves of Covid and even the next pandemic. , have health problems such as obesity and diabetes, increasing their risk of severe COVID-19.

According to Global Health Director Thomas Bolikey, in recent decades more and more Americans have expressed distrust of their governments and each other, and public health precautions such as vaccinations and reducing contact during the surge have increased. Less Tendency to Follow Measures.Program of the Council on Foreign Relations.

A study published Tuesday in the scientific journal The Lancet by Bolikey and Dr. Diehlman of the University of Washington found that the level of mistrust in a given country was strongly associated with coronavirus infection rates.

“Our research suggests that the best way for governments to protect their citizens when infected with a new contagious virus is to persuade them to protect themselves.”

Infection levels remain high in many states, but scientists say some deaths could be avoided by taking precautions like self-testing and wearing masks around older and more vulnerable Americans. said it is possible. Scientists say the number of casualties from future waves will depend on the emergence of other subspecies and the level of death Americans deem acceptable.

“The very high death toll has normalized in the United States,” said Ann Soshin, who studies health equity at Dartmouth College. “If we want to declare the end of the pandemic now, what we are doing is normalizing the very high mortality rate.”