After Two Years, Which Countries Fared Worst During the COVID Pandemic?

Summary

• We compare excess deaths from a dataset by The Lancet to discover which countries fared best and worst with COVID-19.
• The US did poorly, with similar excess deaths to the worst-performing Western European countries.
• The Asia-Pacific region fared best: four countries saw fewer deaths than during normal years.

Tapping a New Dataset on COVID-19

It has been two years since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. And almost every country has tried to deploy various strategies to contain it – from lockdowns to vaccines. But which countries have done best? And which fared worst?

Numerous ways exist to assess success, from hospitalisations to COVID-linked deaths. But perhaps the best metric is excess deaths. This does away with labelling a death as linked to COVID and instead looks at how many more deaths occurred over the past two years compared with ‘normal’ years. We use a new dataset on excess deaths produced by The Lancet to compare countries. Our main findings are:

• In Western Europe, Sweden had a similar excess death rate as fellow Nordic countries Finland and Denmark. Norway was an outlier with a much lower excess death rate.
• The UK had similar excess death rates as France and Germany, while Italy, Portugal and Spain had the worst performance.
• The US had a similar excess death rate as the worst-performing Western European countries.
• Of the five largest American states, California fared best, while Florida fared worst.
• Canada had a third of the excess death rate of the US and fared better than almost all Western European countries.
• The Asia-Pacific region had some of the best-performing countries. Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore saw fewer deaths than normal years. China and Korea saw the same number of deaths as normal years.
• India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh fared worst in Asia with excess death rates similar to Western Europe.
• Elsewhere, Mexico and Eastern Europe had almost double the excess death rate of Western European countries, while Brazil had a similar excess death rate as the US and Italy.
• The worst-hit countries in our sample were Bolivia, Bulgaria, Peru and Lebanon.

Below are the details by region.

Western Europe

• Sweden was vilified for its laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, yet its excess death per capita, at 91 excess deaths per 100,000, was about the same as fellow Nordic countries Denmark and Finland. Norway was the outlier Nordic country with seven excess deaths per 100,000.
• At the other end of the spectrum, Italy, Portugal, and Spain performed the worst with excess deaths per 100,000 of between 190 and 230.
• The UK, France and Germany have had similar excess deaths per 100,000 of around 120. The similar performance of these countries was significant given each country followed different containment strategies.
• Iceland fared best with negative excess deaths (fewer deaths than in normal years). Along with Norway, Ireland’s 11 excess deaths per 100,000 was among the lowest in Western Europe. Interestingly, Northern Ireland had a much higher excess death rate of 132 per 100,000 than Ireland’s 11.

North and Central America

• The US was at the worse end of the Western European spectrum, with 179 excess deaths per 100,000. That was similar to Spain’s.
• Of the five largest US states, we California fared best with 144 excess deaths per 100,000. Meanwhile, Florida fared worse at 212 deaths per 100,000. Texas and New York had a similar number of excess deaths, around 200 excess deaths per 100,000. Pennsylvania saw 173 excess deaths per capita.
• Canada and Costa Rica had notably better performances with 60-70 excess deaths per capita, while Mexico fared much worse with 325 excess deaths per capita.
• Cuba, the Bahamas and Guatemala had similar excess death rates to the US, while Honduras and Nicaragua were nearer the higher Mexico rates.

Asia-Pacific

• Two years on from the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions and Asia-Pacific has fared better than any other region.
• Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan even saw negative excess deaths (fewer deaths than normal years). Meanwhile, China and Korea saw no difference from normal years.
• Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh were the worst hit with around 140-150 excess deaths per 100,000. These were similar rates to Netherlands and Belgium.

South America

• South America contained some of the worst-performing countries: Bolivia and Peru had 735 and 529 excess deaths per 100,000, respectively.
• Ecuador and Venezuela were next worst hit with around 200 excess deaths per 100,000.
• Brazil and Argentina had excess deaths of around 170-190 per 100,000 – near US levels.
• Chile fared the best in the region with 108 excess deaths per 100,000.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Bulgaria suffered one the worst excess death rates in our sample with 647 excess deaths per 100,000. Only Bolivia did worse.
• But the region also contained a slew of countries with excess death rates in the range of 300-400 – more than double the rate of the major Western European countries. These poorly performing Central and Eastern European countries include Russia, Poland and Hungary.
• The best-performing country was Turkey with around 120 excess deaths per 100,000. This was similar to Germany.

The Middle East and North Africa

• The region had wide dispersion of performance. Lebanon fared worse with an excess death rate of 416. Libya, Iraq and Tunisia also fared poorly with an excess death rate of around 300 per 100,000, similar to Eastern Europe.
• Iran ended up with an excess death rate of 161, which was better than the US.
• UAE had an excess death rate of 90, while Israel, Saudi and Kuwait fared better with an excess death rate of around 50.
• Qatar performed best in the region with an excess death rate of 20.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• South Africa had the worst performance in Sub-Saharan Africa with an excess death rate of 293. This was near Eastern European levels.
• Next came Kenya with an excess death rate of 181, similar to the US.
• Tanzania, Angola, and Ethiopia had around 110 excess deaths per 100,000, close to Austria and Turkey.
• Meanwhile, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Congo had excess death rates of 40-60 (similar or better than Canada).

Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Editor of Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.

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