Data: More than 700K seniors died from COVID

As US death toll nears 1M, some demographics hit harder than others

Doug Lambrecht was among the first of the nearly 1 million Americans to die from COVID-19. His demographic profile – an older white male with chronic health problems – mirrors the faces of many who would be lost over the next two years.

The 71-year-old retired physician was recovering from a fall at a nursing home near Seattle when the new coronavirus swept through in early 2020. He died March 1 that year, an early victim in a devastating outbreak that gave a first glimpse of the price older Americans would pay.

The pandemic has generated gigabytes of data that make clear which U.S. groups have been hit the hardest.

More than 700,000 people 65 and older died. Men died at higher rates than women.

White people made up most of the deaths overall, yet an unequal burden fell on Black, Hispanic and Native American people considering the younger average age of minority communities.

With 1 million deaths in sight, Doug’s son Nathan Lambrecht reflected on the toll.

“I’m afraid that as the numbers get bigger, people are going to care less and less,” he said.

Three out of every four deaths were people 65 and older, according to U.S. data analyzed by The Associated Press.

“A million things went wrong and most of them were preventable,” said elder care expert Charlene Harrington of

the University of California, San Francisco. Harrington, 80, hopes the lessons of the pandemic lead U.S. health officials to adopt minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes, “then maybe I can retire.”

White people made up 65% of the total deaths, the largest proportion of any race by far. This isn’t that surprising because there are more white people in the U.S. than any other race. American Indians, Pacific Islanders and Black people had higher death rates when looking at COVID-19 deaths per capita.

Death rates per capita still leave out a characteristic that is crucial to understanding which groups were disproportionately affected – COVID-19 is more deadly for the elderly.

Looking at deaths per capita, Mississippi had the highest rate of any state.

“We’ve lost so many people to COVID,” said Joyee Washington, a community health educator in Hattiesburg. “The hard thing in Mississippi was having to grieve with no time to heal. You’re facing trauma after trauma after trauma . ... Normal is gone as far as I’m concerned.”

The surge that began in late 2020 was particularly rough for rural America.

Americans living in rural areas have been less likely to get vaccinated than city dwellers, more likely to be infected and more likely to die.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

DAVID GOLDMAN/AP Nathan Lambrecht’s father, Doug, was one of the first Americans to die from COVID-19. “I’m afraid that as the numbers get bigger, people are going to care less and less,” he said.