Lancet study estimates roughly 40% of the USA’s coronavirus deaths could have been prevented

Roughly 40% of the USA’s coronavirus deaths could have been prevented, new study says The Lancet Commission described the former president's COVID-19 response as “inept and insufficient" and advocated for a single-payer health system. Ken Alltucker USA TODAY

About 40% of the nation’s coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if the United States’ average death rate matched other industrialized nations, a new Lancet Commission report has found. 

While the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era faulted former President Donald Trump’s “inept and insufficient” response to COVID-19, its report said roots of the nation’s poor health outcomes are much deeper.

Commission co-chairs Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein, professors at the City University of New York's Hunter College and longtime advocates for a single-payer health system such as "Medicare for All," said the report, published Thursday, underscores decades of health, economic and social policies that have accelerated the nation’s disparities.

The report found U.S. life expectancy began trailing other industrialized nations four decades ago. In 2018, two years before the pandemic, the report said 461,000 fewer Americans would have died if U.S. mortality rates matched other Group of Seven nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.  

“The overriding thing that we need to do in our country is to decrease the huge and widening inequalities that have emerged in our nation,” Himmelstein said.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected people of color, with the death rates among Blacks increasing 50% compared with whites. Coronavirus deaths for people of color are 1.2 to 3.6 times higher than for whites; the disparities were especially high among middle-aged adults, possibly a sign of crowded living conditions and jobs that did not allow people to safely distance, the report said.

Public health measures such as mask wearing and physical distancing could have saved lives, Woolhandler said, but Trump failed to create a national response, instead leaving crucial decisions to states. ...