This article originally appeared on Huff Post.
North Dakota had the highest COVID-19 mortality rate of any other state or even any other country in the world last week, according to a shocking analysis by the Federation of American Scientists.
South Dakota ranked third-worst in the world.
Both states also have the lowest rates of face mask use in the nation.
The rates are what health experts would expect in a war-torn nation — but not in the U.S., the scientists said.
“How could we allow this in the United States to happen?” Dr. Ali Mokdad, a health professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, told USA Today. “This is unacceptable.”
It’s a situation “as bad as it gets anywhere in the world,” complained Dr. William Haseltine, president of Access Health International, who blamed state leaders for failing to adopt lifesaving health measures.
North Dakota, which first hit the top of the FAS global mortality charts last month, tallied 18.2 deaths per million last week, and South Dakota had 17.4 deaths per million, according to the FAS analysis… read full article.