It has been one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. In that time, more than 118 million people have contracted the virus and 2,622,190 people, including 529,267 in the United States, have died as a result.
It has been one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. In that time, more than 118 million people have contracted the virus and 2,622,190 people, including 529,267 in the United States, have died as a result. Those deaths caused a 15% spike in the U.S. death rate for 2020.
That increase in the death rate for 2020 makes it the deadliest year in recorded U.S. history, Politico reported, citing information from an expected announcement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data will be published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
According to Politico, the CDC report will highlight the death rate in the United States and hone in on the disparity of deaths among the different racial and ethnic groups within the nation. Previous data released by the CDC shows that non-Hispanic Black people are almost twice as likely from the virus compared to Caucasians, according to Politico. The report further shows that Hispanic people are 2.3 times as likely to die and American Indian and Alaska Natives 2.4 times as likely to die.
Over the course of 2020, approximately 3 million people died. Of those, COVID-19 was a significant contributing factor, the CDC report is expected to reveal. According to two unnamed sources who spoke with Politico ahead of the report’s release, COVID-19 will be the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Deaths associated with the novel coronavirus replaces “unintentional injuries” in the third-place spot, Politico said.
The increased death rate in 2020 stands in stark contrast to 2019, when the rate actually fell 1.2%. The increase in the U.S death rate is the largest since 1918, the last year of World War I. During that same year, the Spanish Flu raged across the globe taking the lives of an estimated 50 million people, including 675,000 in the United States, according to CDC data.
The Spanish Flu occurred 20 years before Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis developed the first vaccine against flu viruses.
In contrast, the pharmaceutical industry, which is far more robust and has access to technology and data undreamed of 100 years ago, was able to pivot and develop and market vaccines against COVID-19 in less than a year’s time. Since the first vaccines were authorized and administered at the end of 2020, a little more than 10% of the U.S. population has now been vaccinated against COVID-19.
The expected CDC report is the first of several that are expected to deal with COVID-related deaths, Politico said.
Last month, the CDC estimated that life expectancy in the United States declined by one year, due to COVID-19. The CDC said life expectancy dropped from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.8 years. Even in that report, there is a significant difference based on ethnicity. The government report said life expectancy decreased 0.8 years for non-Hispanic white people, 1.9 years for Hispanic individuals and 2.7 years for non-Hispanic Black people.
