The Stark Difference Between Australia V. America In Covid Death Rate.

May 16, 2022 Glen Turpening

Australia was able to harness the medical community and the public trust in healthcare to avoid the massive Covid death toll experienced by the Unites States. (Damian Cave writing for ‘The New York Times’)

If the United States had the same Covid death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved. The Texas grandmother who made the perfect pumpkin pie might still be baking. The Red Sox-loving husband who ran marathons before Covid might still be cheering at Fenway Park. For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of one million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change. Many places provide insight. Japan. Kenya. Norway. But Australia offers perhaps the sharpest comparisons with the American experience. Both countries are English-speaking democracies with similar demographic profiles. In Australia and in the United States, the median age is 38. Roughly 86 percent of Australians live in urban areas, compared with 83 percent of Americans.

Damian Cave writing for 'The New York Times'

America and Australia could not be more different when it comes to the healthcare response to the Covid pandemic and the death toll clearly indicates an extremely divergent path. Australia, with a very small population that trusts the government combines with its nationwide free healthcare is the clear winner when using mortality as the ultimate metric to measure success. America chose a starkly different path and now 1 million people are dead as a result.