Thread by @faisalislam

NEW:

Based on a full year’s comparable data, the US overtook the UK as the worst hit G7 country in terms of pandemic excess deaths... when we first did this analysis with @HealthFdn for the first wave last June, UK was by some way worst. US now hardest hit alongside UK & Italy.

percentage measure above includes some allowance for the demographic trend in calculating the expected levels of death over past year... this below is a cruder measure using a 5 year average of G7 deaths, but is the same way we calculated it for first wave - US the big change..

Full Story:

These international comparisons throw up some v important questions...

For context best performers - Japan, canada, & Germany, have lower levels of per capita excess deaths over full year, than UK had in the first wave alone... @HealthFdn

bbc.co.uk/news/business-…

Looking at the evolution of the pandemic waves across the G7 is very interesting...

It shows why the US leapfrogged the UK, - between the peaks, US deaths did not drop back to zero, they remained at an elevated rate, this could reflect different policies by state on lockdowns.

Another interesting perhaps telling detail in the data is that the worst hit G7 nations by pandemic excess deaths, match almost exactly in order the ones then best at rolling out full vaccinations... ie US and UK, top of the tree, Japan etc bottom (ac to OWID)

Questions that arise from comparative G7 data here:

1. Why Germany, Canada, Japan did so well in suppressing?
2. Why US record in last half of 2020 was so bad
3. How Italy, despite having least notice, still ended up doing better than US/UK
4. Just why UK wave 1 was so bad

Health Foundation full report has been published here... take a look: health.org.uk/publications/l…