Assessing COVID-19 pandemic policies and economic trade-offs across US: Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022
“Standardized cumulative COVID-19 death rates for the period from Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022 varied across the USA (national rate 372 deaths per 100 000 population, with the lowest standardized rates in Hawaii and the highest in Arizona (581 per 100 000).”
Note: This study adjusts for each state’s age profile and the prevalence of chronic health conditions that put people at higher risk of death from COVID-19 like COPD, diabetes, BMI, and cancer and smoking rates… meaning it more directly measures the quality of a state’s response because it factors out age and health factors outside of a governor or health department director’s control.
“State governments’ uses of protective mandates were associated with lower infection rates, as were mask use, and higher vaccination rate.”
“US states that mitigated those structural inequalities, deployed science-based interventions such as vaccination and targeted vaccine mandates and promoted their adoption across society were able to match the best-performing nations in minimizing COVID-19 death rates.”
Note: If Arizona were a country, our crude COVID-19 mortality rate would rank among the worst in the world, similar to Russia, Romania, and Belarus and just behind Peru.