May 5, 2023 – The variety of deaths attributable to COVID greater than halved in 2022 in comparison with the variety of victims the virus claimed in 2021, recent CDC data shows. The decline drops COVID from third to fourth place because the leading reason behind death within the U.S.
Of the greater than 3.2 million individuals who died within the United States in 2022, 186,702 died from COVID, the new data shows.
The commonest causes of death in 2022 were:
- Heart disease: 699,659 deaths, in comparison with 695,547 in 2021.
- Cancer: 607,790 deaths, in comparison with 605,213 in 2021.
- Accidents and unintentional injuries: 218,064 deaths, in comparison with 224,935 in 2021.
- COVID: 186,702 deaths, in comparison with 416,893 in 2021.
If COVID is taken into account not as an underlying cause but as a contributing factor to a different reason behind death, the virus would move into third place, ahead of accidents. In the accidents and unintentional injuries category, a rise in drug overdose deaths was observed for 2022.
The overall mortality rate within the United States fell from 2021 by 5.3% by 2022.
The report presented two different methods of measuring the leading causes of death within the United States, namely the whole variety of deaths by cause and the death rate. Sometimes the death rate is a greater indicator for year-on-year comparisons since it takes under consideration changes in the general population. In 2022, there have been 833 deaths per 100,000 people, in comparison with 880 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021.
Men had higher death rates than women in all age groups, and men were also more more likely to die from COVID than women. The overall death rate for Black and Native Americans increased from 2021 to 2022.
The three groups with the very best death rates within the U.S. were men, older adults and blacks. The highest death rates occurred in January and December. Death rates from heart disease rose for the third 12 months in a row, which an authority said The Washington Post must be cause for concern.
“The results are all the more impressive because the country has lost many older people, who were most vulnerable to heart disease, over the course of the pandemic,” cardiologist Harlan Krumholz, MD, of the Yale School of Medicine, told the post“This may be further evidence that Americans' health continues to deteriorate despite the enormous amounts of money we spend on health care.”
The report's authors noted that the information were preliminary and might be adjusted as more information and death certificates became available.