US Covid-19 cases near six million, nearly a quarter of the world’s total
With close to six million cases, the US leads the world with the highest number of coronavirus infections. It also has the most deaths with more than 183,000 people killed by Covid-19.
But does that make it the worst-hit country? President Trump has claimed it has one of the lowest death rates, but some data shows it is among those worst-affected.
When the death rate is measured against the size of a country’s population, the US remains in the top 10 countries worst-hit.
Meanwhile, excess mortality is a way of capturing the impact of the pandemic on a country including when not all cases of coronavirus are officially recorded.
It captures how many more people have died than would normally be expected.
The US is not the worst-hit for excess mortality – it has 18% above average – which is lower than Italy and the UK, as of 11 July when the latest data was available.
