Study: One-Third of Excess Deaths in U.S. during Pandemic Were Not Due to COVID-19

A new study found that a third of excess deaths in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic could not be directly attributed to the coronavirus.

“Although total US death counts are remarkably consistent from year to year, US deaths increased by 20% during March-July 2020. COVID-19 was a documented cause of only 67% of these excess deaths,” the study, published on the Journal of the American Medical Association’s website, said. “Some states had greater difficulty than others in containing community spread, causing protracted elevations in excess deaths that extended into the summer.” . . .

“Excess deaths attributed to causes other than COVID-19 could reflect deaths from unrecognized or undocumented infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or deaths among uninfected patients resulting from disruptions produced by the pandemic,” the study’s authors noted.

Deaths from heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease and dementia saw statistically significant increases, the study noted. . .

“Beyond the staggering U.S. deaths caused directly by the novel coronavirus, more than 134,200 people have died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March. That is 13,200 more U.S. deaths caused by dementia than expected, compared with previous years,” the Post reported. (Read more from “Study: One-Third of Excess Deaths in U.S. during Pandemic Were Not Due to COVID-19” HERE)

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