In a cross-sectional study published earlier this year, a signficant positive correlation was found in 143 non-island nations with regard to GDP per capita and COVID mortality per milllion.
Here is a graph up to 2020 of crude death rates in high-income nations versus lower-middle income nations:
Notice the steep rise in crude death in high income nations in 2020, but no correspondingly-steep rise in crude death in lower-middle income ones. Examining the numbers reveals that 2020 was a “regular year” for lower-middle income nations:
In fact, crude death in 2020 in lower-middle income nations was lower than what it had been in 2015. One confounding variable here is age, as it can be expected that the high income nations have older populations.
But in 2005 in the graph, crude death rates were similar, even though age was not — so it appears that age differences cannot entirely explain death differences. COVID is the first virus which preferentially attacks the rich. But why?
A Cynical Explanation
One cynical explanation for the findings of the cross-sectional study mentioned at the beginning is that money is not just a tangential variable but is a central variable in COVID outcomes.
Rich nations are those that can afford to pay healthcare providers funds whenever they report COVID patients and COVID deaths. In the USA, a healthcare provider in high-impact areas could receive over $100,000 for every COVID case found and “treated”:
But there should not be financial incentives for increased morbidity and mortality. Instead, healthcare providers should receive financial rewards for saving lives, as they would if we had a free market in medicine.
By not having a free market in healthcare in the USA, healthcare providers no longer have to worry about whether they are saving lives — because the government is paying them to find disease.
A dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, along with hearings and possibly court trials, is in order. There is no “healthy” place for government in medicine.
Reference
[study showing how being rich makes you more likely to die from COVID; Supplement 7a: Regression model for COVID-19 Mortality (per 1 M) and GDP (per capita) in the 143 non-island world countries] — Oshakbayev K, Zhankalova Z, Gazaliyeva M, Mustafin K, Bedelbayeva G, Dukenbayeva B, Otarbayev N, Tordai A. Association between COVID-19 morbidity, mortality, and gross domestic product, overweight/ obesity, non-communicable diseases, vaccination rate: A cross-sectional study. J Infect Public Health. 2022 Feb;15(2):255-260. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2022.01.009. Epub 2022 Jan 14. PMID: 35065358; PMCID: PMC8759097. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759097/