Most people don't grasp the sheer magnitude of the US's failure when it comes to COVID. When you look at how many extra deaths we've had, during the pandemic, versus what we would have expected given pre-pandemic mortality rates, it makes so many other things we worry about look trivial -- like a rounding error in the big picture. Whether we're talking school shootings or terrorism or war deaths, so much of what we fret about just doesn't come close.
Over a period of this length, we should have had about 6.5 million deaths, based on pre-pandemic mortality rates. Instead, we've had about 7.6 million. That 1.1 million extra deaths, thanks to COVID, is 17% mortality elevation. Much of that was avoidable. Japan and Germany, the next two biggest wealthy nations, had excess deaths of 0% and 4%, respectively. Canada, arguably the nation that's closest to us in terms of level of isolation and cultural issues, had 3%. Even within the US, some individual states managed to have much lower mortality elevation, despite dense populations and little isolation, like Massachusetts at a little under 8%.
So, think about what that would mean if we, as a nation, had managed to do as well as Canada.... or even just Massachusetts. We'd be talking about a death toll somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000, instead of 1.1 million. Thus, we can say the cost of our failure, was something like 750,000 extra deaths.
Now, compare that to the kinds of issues we spend so much time discussing (and remember, I'm not counting all COVID deaths... just those we could realistically have avoided merely by performing on par with most advanced societies.)
Wars? 7,051 US soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. That's not even a week's worth of COVID deaths. In fact, you could add all the Americans killed in every war in our history, other than the Civil War, and not reach 750,000. Think about that: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, 1812, the Revolutionary War, countless Indian Wars and police actions, all totaled, and still fewer dead than than the mortality caused by our incompetence in handling COVID.
Terrorism? Well, our extra COVID death toll is like suffering a 9/11 attack every single month for 20 straight years. Every four days or so, on average, our incompetent handling of COVID was killing more Americans than all the terrorist attacks in history combined.
School shootings? At the current rate of school homicides (36/year), the 750,000 who needlessly died because we botched COVID response is like nearly 21,000 years of such school massacres.
Over a period of this length, we should have had about 6.5 million deaths, based on pre-pandemic mortality rates. Instead, we've had about 7.6 million. That 1.1 million extra deaths, thanks to COVID, is 17% mortality elevation. Much of that was avoidable. Japan and Germany, the next two biggest wealthy nations, had excess deaths of 0% and 4%, respectively. Canada, arguably the nation that's closest to us in terms of level of isolation and cultural issues, had 3%. Even within the US, some individual states managed to have much lower mortality elevation, despite dense populations and little isolation, like Massachusetts at a little under 8%.
So, think about what that would mean if we, as a nation, had managed to do as well as Canada.... or even just Massachusetts. We'd be talking about a death toll somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000, instead of 1.1 million. Thus, we can say the cost of our failure, was something like 750,000 extra deaths.
Now, compare that to the kinds of issues we spend so much time discussing (and remember, I'm not counting all COVID deaths... just those we could realistically have avoided merely by performing on par with most advanced societies.)
Wars? 7,051 US soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. That's not even a week's worth of COVID deaths. In fact, you could add all the Americans killed in every war in our history, other than the Civil War, and not reach 750,000. Think about that: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, 1812, the Revolutionary War, countless Indian Wars and police actions, all totaled, and still fewer dead than than the mortality caused by our incompetence in handling COVID.
Terrorism? Well, our extra COVID death toll is like suffering a 9/11 attack every single month for 20 straight years. Every four days or so, on average, our incompetent handling of COVID was killing more Americans than all the terrorist attacks in history combined.
School shootings? At the current rate of school homicides (36/year), the 750,000 who needlessly died because we botched COVID response is like nearly 21,000 years of such school massacres.
