How Excess Mortality In 2020 Compares [Infographic]

A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has compared Covid-19 deaths and excess all-cause mortality in the United States and 18 other developed countries in 2020. Looking at the number of deaths per 100,000 people exclusively attributed to Covid-19, the U.S. had 60.3 fatalities since the start of the pandemic (February 13, 2020 in the study) up to September 19, 2020. That is high compared to the other countries in the analysis, particularly Germany (11.3) and Canada (24.6) though some countries, such as Belgium (86.8) and the United Kingdom (62.6) have had an even higher per capita death toll. When Covid-19 deaths are compared since June 07, 2020, however, the U.S. is far ahead of all other countries in the analysis with 27.2 deaths per 100,000 people while Belgium and Canada had 4.2 and 4.0 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively.

So, how do the excess all-cause mortality figures compare? Overall deaths in the U.S. this year are more than 85% higher than some developed countries such as Germany, Israel and Denmark when adjusted for population size. Looking at the point the country surpassed one case per million inhabitants through July 25, 2020 compared to the same weeks between 2015 and 2019, the U.S. had 71.6 deaths per 100,000 people compared to 102.2 in Spain, 94.5 in the United Kingdom, 67.8 in Belgium, 51.5 in France, 13.3 in Canada and 10.0 in Germany. Looking at the same figures since May 10, the U.S. death toll is significantly higher than all other countries in the analysis at 31.2 excess deaths per 100,000 of the population while Sweden, which has been criticized for avoiding a full lockdown, had the second highest death toll at 14.9. With cases still mounting in the U.S. and Europe battling a second wave of infections, the number of excess deaths across all countries in the report is going to make especially grim reading by the end of the year.

*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)