It takes a while for population-level data from countries to be gathered, tabulated, and analyzed, but they're now available for all-cause mortality during the first two years of the covid-19 pandemic (March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2022).
Writing for Bloomberg Opinion, Faye Flam explains that this particular statistic is most useful because it gets past subjectivity and differences in testing. And comparing it year over year in the same place automatically controls for many variables.
What were the findings?
Within the U.S.:
For example, comparisons made...across different counties in Massachusetts showed excess deaths clustered in areas with low vaccination rates. In their nationwide analysis, they found the South had the most excess deaths and the lowest vaccine uptake....
[They found] that Native Americans, Black and Hispanic Americans died in disproportionate numbers, and that men showed more excess deaths than women. And in a surprising twist, while many more elderly people died by sheer numbers, the rate of excess death was higher among people under 50. That is, the death rate among those under 50 was more abnormal than the deaths of those over 65.
After June 2021, when vaccines became widely available, the comparison among countries around the world became starker:
The U.S. had the most excess deaths [of wealthy countries], at 145.5 excess deaths per 100,000 people. The next-worst country was Finland with 82.2. The best two were Sweden, with 32.4, and New Zealand, with only 5.1 excess deaths per 100,000.
The 10 most-vaccinated U.S. states appeared comparable to much of Europe at 65.1, while the least-vaccinated states had an excess death rate of 193.3.
Columnist Flam notes that these state numbers should counter the conspiratorial idea that the vaccines caused a significant number of deaths. Clearly, the opposite is closer to the truth, at a three-to-one rate.
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