Europe, Not the U.S., Leads in COVID Deaths Per Capita

While the United States has garnered attention for a growing number of COVID-19 cases, it’s Europe that is contending with the largest death rate from the disease.

European countries have an average number of deaths per capita from the disease over twice as large as that of the Americas or any other region, particularly from Western and Southern Europe.

Individually, smaller micronations like San Marino and Andorra top the list whose small populations could skew their numbers, but European countries are not far off, such as Belgium (#2), the United Kingdom (#4), Spain (#5), and Italy (#6).

With a few exceptions, these European countries don’t have a particularly large number of cases and there’s no indication why relatively few cases might lead to higher mortality. Belgium has a death rate 8 times larger than Qatar, while having 1/6th the rate of cases. Africa, Asia, and Oceania all have rates far below that of Europe and America. Eastern European countries are also far below Western Europe.

Death rate per confirmed case generally follows the deaths per capita, with Western European countries near the top, like France, Belgium, Italy, and the U.K. Yemen is a unique exception in that it has the highest deaths per confirmed case, but a relatively low death rate (109th) and confirmed case rate (192nd). Essentially, few people have the disease and few have died from the disease in the country, but of the people who have the disease, people in Yemen have the highest chance of dying from it.

Mexico recently closed the border with the U.S. over the July 4th holiday over concerns of spreading the novel coronavirus.