A total of more than 3 million people in the U.S. died in 2020, the agency found.
The forthcoming report will be the first time the agency has publicly acknowledged that the national mortality rate rose last year and that Covid-19 played a role in the increase. According to CDC data, the increase in 2020 is the largest since 1918 – when hundreds of thousands of people died of influenza in the midst of the First World War. By comparison, the mortality rate in 2019 decreased by 1.2 percent compared to the 2018 toll.
The report is expedited to review within the CDC, according to sources, as the agency seeks to formalize additional studies on the deaths of Covid-19 by 2020. Senior officials at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta are also eager to better display the work the CDC is doing. understand how the virus has affected communities of color.
The Associated Press reported in December that the preliminary U.S. death toll indicates the U.S. was on track to keep the deadliest year on record with a 15 percent rise in the death rate. The forthcoming MMCR report from the CDC will formalize the analysis.
The CDC has released some death rates on Covid-19 suggesting that non-Hispanic black people are almost twice as likely to be infected with the virus as white people. Hispanics are 2.3 times more likely to die and Native Americans and Alaska residents are 2.4 times more likely to die.
The MMWR report is the first in a series of forthcoming CDC reports focusing on Covid-19 deaths.
Officials are finalizing a separate comprehensive report on deaths during the pandemic, but are still working out reporting agents from state health agencies. Although most states have submitted information on more than 90 percent of virus deaths to the health agency, according to another senior administration official, a number of countries are behind schedule. The federal government and state health departments across the country are also still working to analyze hundreds of thousands of “excess deaths” from the past year – or the difference between the number of deaths observed in 2020 and 2019.
The mortality study will build on a recently released report that showed that U.S. life expectancy dropped by a full year due to Covid-19 from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.8 years. The report said that life expectancy decreased during the period by 0.8 years for non-Hispanic white people, 1.9 years for Spanish individuals and 2.7 years for non-Hispanic black people.
The data used for the report were from January to June 2020. The agency plans to launch a life expectancy study within the larger mortality study using the data for the whole of 2020.
According to official records, more than 528,000 people in the U.S. died from Covid-19. About 128,000 of the deaths occurred after Biden took office. As the death toll declines, the number of Covid-19 cases remains high in jurisdictions across the country. Federal health officials are urging Americans to keep health restrictions such as wearing a mask and social distance while in public, even after vaccination.