Prognosis
U.S. Virus-Death Rate Is World’s Worst Among Developed Nations
- Study says mortality worsened amid scattershot health steps
- In other countries hit hard in spring, death rates leveled off
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The proportion of Americans dying from coronavirus infections is the highest in the developed world, according to a study of global mortality rates that shows the U.S. pandemic response left citizens exposed to the lethal disease.
Early in the outbreak, the U.S. mortality rate from Covid-19 was lower than in many other hard-hit countries, including the U.K., Spain and the Netherlands, according to the report Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But as spring turned to summer, the U.S. largely failed to embrace public-health and policy measures that have helped other countries reduce death rates.