The US has a far higher Covid death rate than other wealthy countries | Hacker News Reader

The US has a far higher Covid death rate than other wealthy countries

nytimes.com

19 pointsvanusa9 comments

Without reading the paywalled article, is this because the US Health System sucks compared to most other wealthy countries? Don't get me wrong, if you've the money there are doctors in the US who do amazing things, but I'm talking about the Health System overall. I have lived in the US, and in countries with Universal Health Care, and I'd rather be sick in the latter.

Per the article, low vaccination and booster rate, particularly for the elderly. From the article:

> Twelve percent of Americans 65 and over [are not fully vaccinated]

> And 43 percent of people 65 and over have not received a booster shot.

> In England, by contrast, only 4 percent of people 65 and over have not been fully vaccinated and only 9 percent do not have a booster shot.

Lifestyle issues also get a shoutout:

> Many Americans have health problems like obesity and diabetes that increase the risk of severe Covid.

But to a large extent these would also apply to, say, the UK and Ireland, which both also have hefty obesity rates, albeit not quite as bad as the US.

Cause we are much fatter

Isn’t that just because the U.S. has more pre existing conditions (obesity, diabetes, etc)?

You forgot about:

* Insane levels of poverty for a developed nation

* Limited access to healthcare for many people

* Low level of workers' rights

* Low vaccination rates

I fear the first three bullets have such a bad effect on survivability that the third is not really such a factor.

Other countries, even much poorer ones, which much lower rate of vaccination than the US have lower death rates.

When checked US main causes of death, diabetes rates are very high. At least twice than in other countries. It points to generally bad health condition. Violent death rate is very high (even as 10x higher than in other countries), it points to bad social trust, traffic deaths are at least 2 times as in Germany despite Germans driving with very high speed. It points to much worse safety issues.

Wow, I never made the actual work of comparing numbers. So, what you're saying is, it's basically halfway to Mad Max...

Also I just noticed in my original comment I had made without realizing it a subtle "bullet" joke when talking about the US...

Yes and because of incentivized reporting.

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