US deaths about 300,000 higher since coronavirus pandemic began
- The CDC has been tracking how many deaths have been reported in 2020 and comparing them with other years
- Usually, between February and September, about 1.9 million deaths are reported. This year, it’s closer to 2.2 million
Nearly 300,000 more people have died in the United States in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic than would be expected based on historical trends, with at least two-thirds due to Covid-19, a government report showed, adding that Covid deaths likely were undercounted.
The report from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 299,028 more people died between January 26 and October 3 than the average numbers from past years would have indicated.
CDC said that about 216,000 US deaths from the coronavirus had been reported by the middle of October. “This might underestimate the total impact of the pandemic on mortality,” it said.
“There are many factors that could contribute to an increase in deaths indirectly due to the pandemic, with disruptions to health care being one factor,” study author Lauren Rossen, from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, said.
The count could miss deaths indirectly related to the pandemic, caused by disruptions in health care access or utilisation, and from conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and respiratory diseases, the report said. But it also could reflect rises in non Covid-19 related deaths.
The team took the actual number of deaths in the specific weeks in each of the five previous years and used them to estimate the expected deaths for the same weeks in 2020. Then they compared those expected deaths to the actual deaths reported to the National Vital Statistics System by all 50 states and the District of Columbia.