Excess deaths by sex and Age Group in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States. Many of these excess deaths are directly attributed to COVID-19, but others stem from the pandemic's social, economic, and health care system disruptions. This study compares provisional mortality data for age and sex subgroups across different time windows, with and without COVID-19 deaths, and assesses whether mortality risks are returning to pre-pandemic levels. Using provisional mortality reports from the CDC, we compute mortality risks for 22 age and sex subgroups in 2021 and compare against 2015-2019 using odds ratios. We repeat this comparison for the first twelve full months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (April 2020-March 2021) against the next twelve full months (April 2021-March 2022). Mortality risks for most subgroups were significantly higher in 2021 than in 2015-2019, both with and without deaths involving COVID-19. For ages 25-54, Year 2 (April 2021-March 2022) was more fatal than Year 1 (April 2020-March 2021), whereas total mortality risks for the 65 + age groups declined. Given so many displaced deaths in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, mortality risks in the next few years may fall below pre-pandemic levels. Provisional mortality data suggest this is already happening for the 75 + age groups when excluding COVID-19 deaths.

COVID-19 by the Numbers: What's Next?

Jacobson reflects on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to the social, economic and emotional fabric of every nation worldwide. He notes that as of March 27, The US became the Covid-19 epicenter of the world, with more than 100,000 confirmed cases, and on-going exponential growth that will take the number into millions in the coming weeks. He recognizes that health care system around the nation are bracing for the inevitable surge in patients and the ensuing demand in hospital resources like masks, personal protective equipment, intensive care unit beds and ventilators. He also notes that the complexity of the pandemic response in the country is without parallel and meeting the public health challenge requires a real-time plan for utilizing healthcare personnel, filling medical supply demands and population cooperation in following social distancing protocols. The author also mentions the important role of operations research in helping improve the society and the well-being of all citizens by demonstrating its value.

Beyond COVID-19 deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

COVID-19 has disrupted society and health care systems, creating a fertile environment for deaths beyond the virus. The year 2020 will prove to be the most deadly year on record in the United States. Direct deaths due to COVID-19 have been well documented and reported. Older people (those over 65) have been hardest hit, with over 80% of the COVID-19 deaths in this age group. What has been less clear is the impact on those under 65 years old, particularly those under 44 years old. This study considers both COVID-19 deaths and non-COVID-19 deaths during a 39 weeks period beginning 1 March in both 2020 and averaged over the five years from 2015 to 2019. Across 22 age and gender cohorts, death risks are compared using odds ratios. The results indicate that younger people (those under 15 years old) have experienced the same or a reduction in death risk between 2020 and the average from 2015 to 2019, suggesting that societal changes were protective for some of them. With all COVID-19 deaths removed from the 2020 death counts, 15-64 year olds experienced increased death risk between 2020 and the 2015 to 2019 average. For example, 15-44 year old males experienced a significant increase in their death risk, even though the absolute number of COVID-19 deaths for this cohort is small. The key take away from this study is that COVID-19 resulted in a large number of additional deaths in 2020 compared to the average from 2015 to 2019, both directly from the virus and indirectly due to societal responses to the virus.