Excess deaths in the US - Printable Version

Excess deaths in the US - Printable Version

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Excess deaths in the US - BostonCard - 07-04-2020

This exercise has been done for much of Europe, often finding that the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 does not account for all the people who died during the pandemic above and beyond what might have been expected this time of year. Note, the “excess deaths” don’t necessarily have to have died directly due to COVID-19; they might represent heart attack victims who could have been saved in a hospital, but chose not to go in due to fear of COVID-19, or others who died at home because paramedics couldn’t get to them because they were overwhelmed from COVID-19. On the other hand, some people who might have died due to a motor vehicle collision didn’t drive that month due to the lockdown, and thus never died, so one could imagine a scenario where there are fewer excess deaths than deaths due to COVID-19. That being said, it is likely that some people died at home from COVID-19, having never been tested, and their death was attributed to some other cause.

Anyway, this estimate has been made for the US for the period between March 1 and April 25.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768086?guestAccessKey=a41c1ad0-ef8f-41aa-b478-e3eff3f1e566&utm_source=silverchair&utm_campaign=jama_network&utm_content=covid_weekly_highlights&utm_medium=email

The authors found that there 87001 excess deaths in the US, of which about 65% were

Quote: Between March 1, 2020, and April 25, 2020, a total of 505 059 deaths were reported in the US; 87 001 (95% CI, 86 578-87 423) were excess deaths, of which 56 246 (65%) were attributed to COVID-19. In 14 states, more than 50% of excess deaths were attributed to underlying causes other than COVID-19; these included California (55% of excess deaths) and Texas (64% of excess deaths) (Table). The 5 states with the most COVID-19 deaths experienced large proportional increases in deaths from nonrespiratory underlying causes, including diabetes (96%), heart diseases (89%), Alzheimer disease (64%), and cerebrovascular diseases (35%) (Figure). New York City experienced the largest increases in nonrespiratory deaths, notably from heart disease (398%) and diabetes (356%).

Again, while many of these deaths were really due to other diseases, whose treatment suffered because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but weren’t directly caused by COVID-19, it is highly unlikely that, for example, the rate of death due to heart disease in New York City really was 4 times higher than normal, aside from cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 itself. As the authors conclude:

Quote: Large increases in mortality from heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases were observed. Further investigation is required to determine the extent to which these trends represent nonrespiratory manifestations of COVID-19 or secondary pandemic mortality caused by disruptions in society that diminished or delayed access to health care and the social determinants of health (eg, jobs, income, food security).