US Has Suffered More Than 1 Million Excess Deaths During Pandemic, CDC Finds

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: There have been more than 1 million excess deaths in the US during the pandemic, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The deaths are mainly attributable to Covid-19, as well as conditions that may have resulted from delayed medical care and overwhelmed health systems. At least 923,000 Americans have died from confirmed Covid cases, according to the CDC. Other causes of death above the normally expected number have included heart disease, hypertension and Alzheimer's disease. Some Americans also die months after their initial Covid diagnosis, because the virus created other fatal complications. Excess deaths are calculated by looking at previous years' fatalities. In 2019, there were 2.8 million deaths in the US; in 2020, it was approximately 3.3 million. While cause of death can sometimes be difficult to ascertain, and political pressures can lead to miscounting, excess deaths can indicate the broad scope of a health emergency. These figures can reveal the truer toll of Covid -- including deaths directly from infection as well as deaths from the circumstances of the crisis. The global number of excess deaths may be millions higher than the official count of Covid deaths. Excess deaths are also known as untimely or "early" deaths. While the majority of excess deaths in the US occurred among those 65 and older, many of those Americans had many years left to live.

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