Even as U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 400,000 this week, some Americans dispute the accuracy of the death toll, contending it is exaggerated.
Final figures aren’t yet in, but preliminary numbers show 2020 is on track to become the deadliest year in U.S. history, with more than 3.2 million total deaths – about 400,000 more than 2019 – a sharp increase that public health experts attribute to COVID-19 and aligns with reported deaths from the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,835,533 U.S. deaths in 2019. Before the pandemic, models projected a slightly higher number, about 2.9 million deaths, for 2020, said Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
It’s not a coincidence, he said, that the 400,000 excess deaths closely resemble the number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S., which reached 401,796 as of Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins data.
“That is not a seasonal change or just a random bad year,” Faust said. “That is what every person who can correctly attest to these numbers can plainly see is a historic increase in excess mortality. If we put that together with the number of coronavirus deaths, it’s game, set, match.”
Excess deaths are defined as “the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods.”
The CDC predicts excess deaths since Feb. 1 may be between 350,000 and 469,000. Faust says some models project the number may be closer to 430,000.
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond estimate excess deaths may be up to 50% higher than publicly reported.
By examining death certificates, they found more than 150,000 deaths were officially attributed to COVID-19 from March to July but determined that nearly 75,000 additional deaths were indirectly caused by the pandemic, according to a study published in October in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA.
With that logic, excess deaths easily may be higher than 500,000 or approaching 600,000, said Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
“That’s based on where we are right now, and unfortunately, we’re seeing the numbers climbing, so the concern is obviously that we’re going to end up with more excess deaths than that,” he said.
Deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are not the sole cause of 2020’s increase, as the country also has seen more overdoses, partly due to the isolation brought on by the pandemic.
According to the CDC, there were more than 81,000 overdose deaths in the 12 months that ended in May, marking the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a yearlong period. Overdose data for all of 2020 is not yet available.
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Faust said the country continues to see a historic increase in excess deaths among the young adult population, specifically ages 25 to 44.
A CDC study found deaths in that age group from all causes increased by 26.5% from January to October, the largest average percentage change among all age groups. Faust said, according to modeling, the nation saw 7,300 excess deaths in this population from August to the end of November.
“Which, again, tells us that the pandemic and its effects are not just limited to the elderly,” he said.
2020 wasn’t ‘just a random bad year,’ health experts say: COVID-19 made it one of the deadliest in US history
