The impact of the pandemic took a greater toll on the US and the UK in the latest study from the Health Foundation.
In the initial stages of the pandemic, countries such as Italy and France endured a first wave which hit Europe particularly hard. It then spread to the UK and the US, which over the past year suffered the highest number of excess deaths per 100k citizens.
In fact, recent new figures have shown that while the UK was the worst affected G7 country in terms of cases and deaths initially, the US fared even worse as case numbers skyrocketed at the end of 2020 and the beginning of this year.
The UK endured a viral resurgent wave when a new mutation led to a full national lockdown in January this year. At the time, critics were focused on Britain being the ‘sick man of Europe’ but thanks to the rapid pace of the domestic rollout of vaccines, the UK has done remarkably well to recover.
The US, due to its slow start to the vaccination program also suffered from high excess deaths that were more than double that of Germany and Canada by comparison.
With COVID-19 case numbers still high around the world, G7 countries are working on bringing more vaccines to developing countries to speed up the fight against Coronavirus.
As economies start to recover and a majority of citizens receive their vaccines by the end of this year, there’s optimism that the pandemic, at least for G7 countries, could be behind us by Christmas.
However, the cost in terms of lives has been profound, and will be the subject of debate for years to come.
