Deaths in the United States in 2020 are the largest 3 million, by far the most ever counted

It is the deadliest year in US history, with deaths expected to exceed 3 million for the first time, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary figures suggest the United States is on track to experience more than 3.2 million deaths this year, at least 400,000 more than in 2019.

Deaths in the United States increase in most years, so an annual increase in deaths is expected. But the 2020 numbers represent a jump of around 15% and could rise once all of this month’s deaths are counted.

That would mark the biggest year-over-year percentage jump since 1918, when tens of thousands of American soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in an influenza pandemic. Deaths increased 46% that year, compared to 1917.

COVID-19 has killed more than 318,000 Americans and more. Before that happened, there were reasons to be hopeful about death trends in the United States.

The country’s overall death rate declined slightly in 2019, due to reductions in heart disease and cancer deaths. And life expectancy increased slightly – by several weeks – for the second year in a row, according to death certificate data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But life expectancy for 2020 could end up dropping for up to three full years, said Robert Anderson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC counted 2,854,838 deaths in the United States last year, nearly 16,000 more than in 2018. That’s pretty good news: deaths typically increase by around 20,000 to 50,000 each. year, mainly due to the aging and growing population of the country.

Indeed, the age-adjusted death rate fell by about 1% in 2019 and life expectancy increased by about six weeks to 78.8 years, the CDC reported.

“It’s actually been a pretty good year for mortality, as it goes,” said Anderson, who oversees the CDC’s death statistics.

The coronavirus epidemic in the United States has been a big driver of deaths this year, both directly and indirectly.

The virus was first identified in China last year, and the first American cases were reported this year. But it has become the third leading cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer. During certain times this year, COVID-19 was the No.1 killer.

But some other types of deaths have also increased.

An explosion of pneumonia cases earlier this year could be the death of COVID-19 which simply was not recognized as such at the start of the epidemic. But there have also been an unexpected number of deaths from certain types of heart and circulatory disease, diabetes and dementia, Anderson said.

Many of these can also be linked to COVID. The virus could have weakened patients already struggling with these conditions, or could have diminished the care they were receiving, he said.

At the start of the epidemic, some were optimistic that car crash deaths would decrease as people stop commuting or attending social events. Data on this is not yet available, but anecdotal reports suggest that there has not been such a decline.

Suicide deaths fell in 2019 compared to 2018, but early information suggests they haven’t continued to decline this year, Anderson and others said.

Drug overdose deaths, meanwhile, have worsened.

Even before the coronavirus arrived, the United States was in the midst of the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in its history.

Data for the whole of 2020 is not yet available. But last week, the CDC reported more than 81,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12 months ending in May, making it the highest number on record in a one-year period.

Experts believe that the pandemic’s disruption of in-person treatment and recovery services may have been a factor. People are also more likely to take medications on their own – without the benefit of a friend or family member who can call 911 or administer anti-overdose medications.

But the drugs themselves are perhaps a bigger factor: COVID-19 has caused supply problems for dealers, so they are increasingly mixing cheap and deadly fentanyl into heroin, cocaine and more. methamphetamine, experts said.

“I don’t suspect that there are a bunch of new people who have suddenly started using drugs because of COVID. In fact, I think the supply of people who are already using drugs is more contaminated.” , said Shannon Monnat, a researcher at Syracuse University. studies trends in drug overdoses.

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