The United States' COVID-19 death rate is three times higher than the rate in Canada. Here's why.
The U.S. is geographically Canada's next-door neighbor, but when it comes to health, the two countries have had vastly different COVID-19 outcomes.
As of Feb. 28, the COVID-19 death rate in Canada was 95 deaths per 100,000 people, which is one-third of the U.S. rate of 284 deaths per 100,000 people. In Arizona, where I live, the death rate as of Feb. 28 was an astounding 383 deaths per 100,000 people, which is close to four times the rate in Canada.
While there is one simple answer as to why the main contributors, in my opinion, are Canada's stricter mitigation measures, a population that in general is more likely to follow government directives, and a population that has better preventive health care and access to health care than the U.S.
Secondary to those main factors is education. Four-year college degrees in the U.S. have become unaffordable for many Americans, and while the cost has gone up in Canada, government financing of universities mean the cost of a college education in Canada is generally lower than in the U.S.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says that as of 2021 64.4% of 25 to 34 year olds in Canada have a tertiary education, which means post-secondary education in universities as well as trade schools and community colleges. In the U.S., it's 51.9%.
Lower educational attainment leaves some people vulnerable to misinformation about science, which has been deadly during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are elected officials in Arizona, where I live, choosing to reject COVID-19 funding because they believe that the COVID-19 vaccine is a government conspiracy, and they erroneously believe it is killing more people than it's helping.
As of last week, the breakthrough COVID-19 death rate was 0.02%, but some of my Arizona Republic readers either don't understand that rate, or don't believe it.
There will likely be studies about where the U.S. went wrong with its COVID-19 response for years to come, but I can't help but think back to the 1990s when I moved to Flagstaff, Arizona from Toronto after graduate school.
Back then I had very little knowledge of health policy, but I did notice my health habits change significantly, even though I was young and healthy.
With a $1,000 deductible on my health insurance plan and earning a salary of approximately $18,000 per year, I stopped going to the doctor, which was not unusual for any of my new American friends. But this was a new behavior for me. I'd been accustomed to yearly checkups, and to thinking nothing of visiting the doctor when I had a sore throat or lingering cough.
My emergency room visits were supposed to be covered but I learned that insurance companies could decide what constituted an emergency. The deep puncture wound I got in my upper leg, which required a tetanus shot on the Sunday when it occurred, was not an emergency apparently, at least not according to my insurance company’s review of the case. So my ER bill was not covered. I appealed the decision but got rejected and saddled with a bill I could barely afford.
When I developed a cough that turned into bronchitis a few months later, there was no way I was going to spend money going to the doctor, so I treated it myself. To make a long story short, I ended up with severe pneumonia that scarred my lungs, caused me to miss 10 days of work, and most certainly cost the health care system more than it would have cost to just treat my bronchitis with medication weeks earlier.
As a health reporter in the U.S., I have met generations of families with this exact attitude about health care - avoid treatment unless it's a life-threatening emergency, even when those families have health insurance. While I have no science to back it up, I suspect this kind of health behavior affected health outcomes from COVID-19 .
There are many things I love about the U.S. but the COVID-19 death toll is a sad reminder that the health system here causes preventable deaths and needless human suffering.