Between March 2020 and October 2021, in the USA, Covid-19 was responsible for one in 8 deaths, just over 12% of the total, preceded, among the causes of death, only by cardiovascular disease and cancer. This is the data that emerges from an analysis conducted by researchers from the National Cancer Institute published on Jama Internal Medicine.
In the period considered by the research, 5.73 million deaths occurred in the USA: 20.1% (1.15 million) due to heart disease, 17.5% (1 million) due to cancer, 12 , 2% (699 thousand) to Covid-19, 6.2% (355 thousand) to accidental causes, 4.7% to stroke (269 thousand).
Covid deaths by age group
The numbers show that, in the first phase, the pandemic mainly affected older people and in the second phase it had a greater impact especially among adults and young adults. A trend “perhaps driven by higher Covid-19 vaccination rates in 2021 in the older age groups”, hypothesize the researchers.
Covid, WHO data: 15 million deaths in the world, double the official ones
In particular, in 2020, among the over-85 people, Covid-19 was the second cause of death with 110,000 deaths and then declined to third cause in 2021 with 69,000 deaths. Speculate the trend in the 45-54 age group: in 2020 it represented the fourth cause of death with 17,000 deaths, leaping to the first cause of death in 2021 (30,000 deaths). In 2021, Covid was also the second leading cause of death among the 35-44 year olds (13,000 deaths), but it also caused the death of 5,000 people between the ages of 25 and 34 and 1,100 between the ages of 15 and 24.
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Official figures may be underestimated
According to the researchers, however, the impact of Covid-19 may be greater than official estimates report: “the pandemic may have caused an indirect increase in other causes of death, including heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and accidents”, yes reads in the study.