Nearly 300,000 ‘excess deaths’ in U.S. since January, CDC says

Those ages 25-44 have experienced the highest percentage rise

“The age distribution of COVID-19 deaths shifted toward younger age groups from May through August; however, those disproportionate increases might also be related to underlying trends in other causes of death,” — Researchers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The number of people who died in the United States since January is significantly higher than the average year and even well above the confirmed death toll for COVID-19, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

F rom lat e Ja nua r y through early October, there were nearly 300,000 “excess deaths” in the U.S., according to the CDC study published Tuesday, or almost 75,000 more than the known death toll from the novel coronavirus. The findings confirmed some of what has become common knowledge about the novel coronavirus — its disproportionate effect on minority communities and the elderly — but also raised new questions.

Researchers were able to attribute about two-thirds of the deaths directly to COVID-19 but were left to speculate about the remaining one-third.

“E s t ima t e s of e xcess deaths attributed to COVID-19 might underestimate the actual number directly attributable to COVID-19,” researchers wrote, “because deaths from other causes might represent misclassified COVID-19-related deaths or deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic.”

Specifically, they wrote, deaths from circulatory diseases, Alzheimer disease and dementia, and respiratory diseases have increased in 2020 relative to past years.

It wasn’t clear if those were occurring as an indirect effect of the pandemic or independently, the researchers said.

To estimate the number of “excess deaths,” researchers looked at mortality data from the past five years to determine an expected death toll for the time period in 2020, then compared the total actual number of deaths over that time.

The study is the most recent and comprehensive attempt to determine the number of excess deaths during the pandemic, following similar findings in the Journal of American Medicine and The New York Times.

The CDC researchers estimated an extra 299,028 deaths above normal from Jan. 26 to Oct. 3.

Though the largest total came among the 75-84 age group — 94,646, higher than expected — they found the most significant percentage increase was among those ages 25- 44 old, who do not account for a large share of the known COVID-19 fatalities.

There were 26.5% more deaths than expected among that age group, and those ages 75-84 made up the nextlargest increase, 24.1%.

There were about 2% fewer deaths than expected among those under 25 years old; every other age group experienced at least 14.7% higher mortality than expected.

“The age distribution of COVID-19 deaths shifted toward younger age groups from May through August; however, those disproportionate increases might also be related to underlying trends in other causes of death,” the researchers wrote. “Future analyses might shed light on the extent to which increases among younger age groups are driven by COVID-19 or by other causes of death.”

Latinos, who account for 61% of cases and 48.6% of deaths from COVID-19 in California despite making up a 38.9% share of the population, also saw the largest percentage increase of excess deaths. There were 53.6% more deaths than expected for Latinos, compared with 28.9 for Asian and Pacific Islanders, 32.9% for Black people and 11.9% for White people.

The timeline of excess deaths observed by researchers largely matches that of pandemic’s path through the country.

The two largest weekly totals came the weeks of April 11 and Aug. 8, lining up with the virus’ peak in New York and the Northeast in the spring, then its summer surge throughout the South and Southwest.

For comparison, the week C a l i f or n i a reported its most confirmed COVID-19 deaths ended Aug. 6.

Although there were 215,000 deaths nationwide at the time of publication, the study’s authors said it likely underestimated the total number of deaths in recent weeks because of incomplete data.