Covid is a respiratory disease and leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome with hypoxemia and respiratory failure in severe cases. Notably, deaths attributed to Respiratory diseases were below average during 2021 for the period of interest between Week 10 and Week 24 of 2021.

The Circulatory diseases category is clearly the most important category for excess deaths during 20. Deaths attributed to Circulatory diseases include strokes, heart attacks, and heart failure (including myocarditis). There was an increase in deaths attributed to Other select causes (which include suicides and drug overdoses), but the magnitude was much smaller than what is seen in the Circulatory diseases category. Although there was an increase in deaths from Alzheimer Disease and dementia in 2020 after the onset of the pandemic, this was less apparent during 2021. Deaths attributed to Malignant Neoplasms were average during the entire pandemic period. As was the case for the Age Group graphs, data for the last 10 weeks are incomplete due to delays in reporting of death certificates. The gray curves are data for 2015-2019.Ĭlearly there is a very significant above average number of deaths across the US that cannot be attributed to Covid. What was responsible for these deaths?įigure 2: Weekly US mortality by Cause Group. One cannot plausibly attribute the above average deaths for the 25-44 age group during this time period to Covid. This time period was the decline phase of the winter outbreak that peaked around January 18, 2021, and reached a nadir around Jprior to the Delta surge. Daily Covid deaths (7-day moving average) in the US were declining from 1,689 on March 7, 2021, to 387 on June 13, 2021. Deaths in the 85+ Age Group are LOWER than average during this interval. There is a very interesting interval from Week 10 (March 7) 2021 to Week 24 (June 13) 2021. Otherwise, mortality for the Over-25 age groups have been higher than historic norms starting in about March of 2020 and continuing to the present time with one big exception for the 85+ age group. The last 10 weeks of data for 2021 are incomplete due to delays in reporting death certificates. There has been nothing unusual about mortality for the Under-25 age group during the Covid period compared to recent history. The tightness of the band for 2015-2019 means that relatively small increases in mortality are very significant events. The years 2015-2019 were very similar for all age groups forming a tight band of usual expectation.

Several generalizations are readily apparent. Figure 1 illustrates the weekly US mortality from 2015-2021 by age group. The CDC collects mortality data for the entire US population. The OneAmerica insurance company serves a subset of the US population.

Us covid deaths 2021