We have already seen how the excess death rates (deaths per 100,000 population) due to covid distributed. The 25th percentile stands at 130 and 75th at 423 (as of 31st December 2021). The statistics of death rates is represented using a box plot.
The global distribution of excess death is sketched below:
Case of missed opportunity?
With all the support from hindsight knowledge, let us explore how much of these deaths could have been avoided (perhaps in the next pandemic!). Start with the top performers (the countries in green). These are true outliers and let us not fancy replicating their model. Australia, Newzealand, China, Singapore, Brunei are countries that opted for zero-covid policies, at least until a significant portion of their population received vaccines. They have closed down the countries and regions for the entire 2020 and the majority of 2021.
Bolivia tops the list in terms of excess deaths per million population, at 1376. The numbers have been bad from the beginning, and inadequate restriction measures, thanks to the chaotic political establishment, after the ouster of then-president, Evo Morales, did not help its course. Even today, Bolivia is far behind in vaccination rates.
While the exact reasons why Bulgaria is second in the global death charts is not known, I suppose it was not a coincidence that the country was the least vaccinated in Europe – just 27% by December 2021. For Peru, for instance, the story was poverty, lack of medical supplies, and oxygen. Delta variant and slow vaccinations are cited as the major reasons for the death toll in Russia.
The magenta counties
Brazil may be the model case of what not to do in a pandemic. The pandemic response was lax, and most of the deaths had happened in the first two waves, before the large-scale vaccination programs.
The US is an intriguing example. On the one hand, one can argue that the death rate of around 300 per 100,000 is the limit of what this disease can do with moderate barriers of disease control and a reasonable rate of vaccination. But the question will remain why the country can’t do what its neighbour Canada had managed (115). Spain too belongs to this category and is one of the countries that got battered in the first wave. The reason: no real preparedness as one of the earliest countries (after China and Italy) to hit the virus.
Final word for the country that topped the list of excess death – with about 4 million! India started with one of the most stringent covid measures in the world (shut down of March-May 2020). The country could not cope with the tides of the two waves, one starting from June 2020 and then the delta of 2021, with decent vaccination levels were so far away.
Reference
Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21: The Lancet
Covid Response: Bolivia
Covid Response: Peru
Covid Case: Spain
