Why the COVID death rate in the U.S. is so much higher than other wealthy nations
Geoff Bennett:
Judy, those troubling statistics have been persistent since COVID first spread.
And, today, an analysis by The New York Times underscores just how deep these problems are. It compared the U.S. death rate for COVID to other wealthy industrialized countries. America had the highest rates. And, as you can see on this simplified chart of The Times' data, the U.S. rate was higher than Britain, Germany, Canada, and Japan, just to name a few.
And the disparity has been even worse during the spread of Omicron.
So, why are we continuing to struggle?
We dig into that now with Jennifer Nuzzo, who studies epidemiology and global health at the Johns Hopkins Center For Health.
It's good to have you with us. And we will start there.
What accounts for this high death rate, the U.S., as compared to its peer nations?
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: I mean, first of all, we have to acknowledge that it's a complete and utter tragedy, because the vast majority of the deaths have been preventable, because many of them have occurred, in fact, most of them have occurred since the development of the COVID-19 vaccines.
But what we're really seeing is the effect of the United States not making enough progress in vaccinating adults against the virus . And people who are not protected from severe illness by vaccine are, unfortunately, the ones most likely to die.
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