Geographic differences in COVID-19 death rates
When comparing death rates, large differences exist between and within
countries and the evolution of the pandemic differs largely between
countries (Figure 1). As the temporal dynamic of the pandemic may have
changed the geographical patterns observed in our previous analyses,2 we focus on the more recent mortality trends.
Although there are many pitfalls in analyzing death rates for COVID-19,2 the evolution of death rates between May 20 and July
18 shows a dramatic increase in Latin America and some increase in
European countries, certain African countries, the Middle East, India,
Pakistan and some of the South East Asian countries. However, there is
no change in the very low death rates of Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea,
Lao, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam as well as of many Sub-Saharan African
countries, Australia and New Zealand. This geographical pattern is very
unlikely to be totally due to reporting differences between countries.