The United States has reached a milestone in its long battle against COVID-19. The total number of Americans dying every day, regardless of cause, is no longer historically abnormal.
Excess deaths, for which this number is known, are an important measure of the true number of COVID-19 deaths because they do not rely on vague attribution of deaths to specific causes. Even if COVID-19 diagnoses are underestimated, excess mortality statistics can capture the impact. The statistic also captures the indirect effects of COVID-19, including a spike in vehicle crashes, gun deaths, and deaths from lack of access to medical care during the pandemic.
During the worst phase of COVID-19, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a shocking increase. Over the last three long years, the excess has been over 10% for him. However, over the past few months, excess mortality has fallen to almost zero, according to three different indicators.
After three terrifying years in which the novel coronavirus killed more than a million Americans and changed parts of our daily lives, the virus has turned into a common disease.
The story is similar, albeit less positive, in many other countries.
power of immunity
Progress comes primarily from three factors.
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First, about three-quarters of US adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
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Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with COVID-19, giving them natural immunity to future symptoms. (About 97% of adults fit into at least one of her first two categories.)
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Third, post-infection treatments such as paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Almost all deaths are preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jah, who until recently was President Biden’s top COVID-19 adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everyone who gets the latest vaccine and gets treatment for COVID-19 is rarely hospitalized and rarely dies.”
This also applies to most high-risk people, including those in their 80s like his parents and those with compromised immune systems, Jah noted. “For most, if not all, immunocompromised people, vaccines are actually still very effective in preventing serious illness,” he said. “There’s a lot of bad news circulating that vaccines don’t work if your immune system is weakened.”
The drop in excess deaths to near zero helps support this point. If COVID-19 was still a serious threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.
I think part of the confusion is that many Americans, including us in the media, have talked about immunocompromised patients. They are a more diverse group than casual discussions often imagine.
Most immunocompromised people, even those with serious medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis and a history of many cancers, pose little additional risk from COVID-19. Much smaller groups, such as those who have had kidney transplants or who are undergoing aggressive chemotherapy, face higher risks.
out of nowhere
To be clear, the damage caused by the new coronavirus has not been zero. CDC’s Covid main web page estimates that the virus has killed about 80 people a day in recent weeks, or about 1 percent of all deaths per day.
This official figure is probably exaggerated as it also includes people who had the virus at the time of their death, even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other CDC data suggests that: almost a third Some of the recent official deaths from COVID-19 fall into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that a similar conclusion.
Still, some Americans are still dying from the new coronavirus. “I don’t know anyone who thinks we can eradicate COVID-19,” Jah said.
“Age is clearly the most significant risk factor,” Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine, Massachusetts, told me. All of the victims of COVID-19 are elderly and unjustly unvaccinated. Recent victims are also disproportionately Republicans and whites, given vaccination policies.
Each of these deaths is a tragedy. A death that could have been prevented because someone did not have available vaccines or treatments seems particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster.)
However, the number of deaths from COVID-19 has now fallen sufficiently that it is difficult to recognize them in the overall mortality data. It can be overwhelmed by fluctuations in other causes of death, such as the flu and car accidents.
Nearly a year ago, President Biden declared that “the pandemic is over,” outraging some public health experts. It may have been premature for him to make that declaration. But excess death milestones suggest it’s now true that the pandemic is finally over.
Related: Researchers are working to ensure that developing countries don’t have to rely on it. Wealthy countries develop vaccines In future pandemics, reports The Washington Post.
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