By: Bill King
I have been wanting to update you on the fatality data for the U.S. However, the death certificates come in so slowly, I did not want to share incomplete data. But there has now been more than enough time for the 2024 data to stabilize.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, slightly over 3 million people died in the U.S. in 2024. That is a fatality rate (fatalities/1,000 population) of just under 9.0. For the fifty years prior to COVID, the rate had ranged from 7.9 to 9.5. It hit the low of 7.9 in 2009 but steadily increased thereafter, reaching 8.7 in 2019.
Of course, the rate soared during the pandemic, averaging about 10 for 2020-2022. There were about 1.4 million more deaths in those years than would have been expected by the trends in place before COVID.
Of course, there is a fierce debate (mostly on social media) about whether the excess fatalities were caused by COVID itself or some of the government’s reactions to it. Given the age distribution of fatalities during the pandemic, I think most of the excess fatalities were caused by the disease itself. Still, there were significant collateral effects from the containment policies that also contributed to more people dying. The most common of these were people deferring health screenings, especially for cancer and cardiovascular conditions.
The 2023 rate was slightly elevated, about 9.3, which was about 100,000 more deaths than the trendline. The rate of 9.0 in 2024 is almost exactly in line with the trajectory in place before the pandemic. The early data for 2025 also indicates we may see a modest improvement this year.
The largest component of the upward trend since 2010 (other than COVID) has been the opioid epidemic. According to the CDC, deaths from drug overdoses soared from under 40,000 in 2010 to over 100,000 during the pandemic. Fortunately, the preliminary numbers indicate that there was a significant downturn in 2024, as the danger from fentanyl-laced illicit drugs has become more widely understood.
However, the fatality rate will have an underlying upward bias in the future because our country is aging. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, approximately 82 million Americans will be over 65, which will account for about a quarter of the population at that time.
It is important to keep this larger fatality perspective in mind when you hear the various claims about this or that killing thousands of Americans. For example, I have some friends who have been convinced by social media that thousands of Americans have died from the COVID vaccine. When they tell me this, I have a very simple question for them: Why isn’t it showing up in the total fatalities?
The U.S. fatality rate is absolutely higher than it should be. But we do not need to resort to conspiracy theories to explain why. We overeat, drink too much, smoke, do dangerous illicit drugs, don’t exercise enough, and too many people don’t get routine medical check-ups, so serious diseases are not diagnosed while there is still time to do something. MAHA is not complicated; it just takes some common sense, discipline, and good primary healthcare.
