US is Not the Worst With COVID-19

Tracy Davenport

Health

8th July 2020

The US has experienced a high rate of COVID-19 (Getty Images)

The Claim

The US has the worst COVID-19 record of any category in the world.

News posted on

ABC News

Laurence (Larry) Boorstein

MJames

Twitter

Washington Post

Emerging story

On a recent ABC news interview, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said when asked about COVID-19, “We have the worst record of any country in the world.”

Users across other platforms have also posted that the U.S. is the worst when it comes to the global pandemic.

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s investigation shows that statements made by Speaker Pelosi and others related to the US having the worst COVID-19 record is misleading. According to the University of Oxford-based project Our World in Data, as of July 7, 2020, the US does have more COVID-19 cases than any other country worldwide.

However, the US does not have the most Covid cases per capita, which takes into account a country’s population and is a more detailed measure.

The US, shown in the top red line, is below other nations in COVID-19 deaths when population is considered. The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and France all had more COVID-19 deaths per million people.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US is also not first when it comes to the most COVID-19 deaths per cases. The United Kingdom actually leads in that category and the US is seventh behind other countries that include Mexico, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, and Egypt.

The US oes not have the worst rating in the world when it comes to Covid-19. While they do have the largest number of cases, in what could be considered more meaningful categories, they do not rank first.