Two years after the outbreak the corona virus has killed Americans at a higher rate than those in other prosperous nations. This is a stark distinction to be aware of as the nation is navigating the next phase of the outbreak.
The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; World Bank United States Census Bureau Note that the countries shown are those that have the highest average gross national income per person among nations with populations of more than 10 million.
The rising death toll has shattered the belief for some Americans of the more serious Omicron variant will keep those in the United States the pain of the previous waves. The death toll has now exceeded the most severe days of the autumn peak in the Delta variant and are nearly two-thirds of the record-setting tolls of the winter of last year which was when vaccines were mostly not available.
With American lawmakers determined to close the chapter on the scourge, and certain European politicians have started to do, the sheer death toll has stifled an optimism even when Omicron cases diminish. The outbreak has revealed flaws in the response of the United States as well, according to researchers. “Death rates are so high in the States — eye-wateringly high,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has supported loosening coronavirus rules in parts of Britain. “The United States is lagging.” “We’ve normalized a very high death toll in the U.S.,” said Anne Sosin, who studies health equity at Dartmouth. “If we want to declare the end of the pandemic right now, what we’re doing is normalizing a very high rate of death.”
