Pandemic Lessons of Sustainability: Higher Covid-19 Mortality in Less Sustainable US States

Abstract

AbstractThis paper intends to contribute to the current debate over what lessons the United States should take away from the Covid-19 pandemic. It focuses on the role that sustainability played in shaping different pandemic outcomes among the 50 states. By the end of 2021, Mississippi reported the highest standardized death rate from Covid-19 in the country, more than five times higher than Vermont, which reported the lowest standardized death rate. If Mississippi had the same rate as Vermont, approximately 83% of the lives lost (7,958 individuals) could have been saved. If all 50 states had the same rate as Vermont, approximately 583,296 individuals (76% of the total deceased) would have survived. The inter-state difference in excess death rates was even larger. It was 18.19% in Arizona, 8.5 times as high as in Hawaii. Political ideology is currently a popular possible explanation for discrepancies among states in pandemic outcomes, given that Republican states tended to have higher death rates compared to Democratic ones. Additionally, partisan politics have been criticized for hindering the US pandemic response, especially in the early stages of the pandemic. However, the current debate lacks an attention to sustainability. This study demonstrates that indicators of sustainability may serve as more significant predictors of the death rates among the US states than political affiliation. Using the percentage of votes for Trump per state in 2020 as a proxy variable, this study found that the correlation between political affiliation and the death rates was significant only when it was the lone parameter. Its effects were overshadowed when vaccination rates and eco-friendliness were included in the equation. Above all, when the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) index was added to the regression, it became the only significant predictor of the death rates. This suggests that it was not “red” or “blue,” but rather “green” that was the most important factor in determining Covid-19 mortality. Pandemic lessons are lessons of sustainability.