One-third of excess deaths in US during pandemic were not due to the coronavirus

From Washington Examiner.com (Oct. 18):

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.”

One reason for the high amount of excess deaths not attributable to COVID-19 has been disruptions in health services caused by lockdowns.

“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.

The American Medical Association study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that between March and August, the U.S. recorded 1,336,561 deaths, a “20% increase over expected deaths.” It noted that “of the 225,530 excess deaths, 150,541 (67%) were attributed to COVID-19.”

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

Those results largely echo those of a September Washington Post analysis of excess dementia deaths. [read more]