COVID-19 Deaths Plunge by Over 70 Percent in America: CDC

CDC reports a dramatic 73 percent drop in COVID-19 deaths in 2023, moving from the fourth to the 10th leading cause.

A respiratory therapist checks on a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Rush University Medial Center in Chicago on Jan. 31, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

New data reveal that COVID-19 has become a less deadly, endemic virus, with mortality dropping by over 70 percent as it fell from the fourth to the 10th leading cause of death in the United States last year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, released on Aug. 8, are based on death certificate information collected by the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System.

The agency’s data show that the number of deaths in 2022 in which COVID-19 was listed as the underlying, or primary, cause of death amounted to 186,552. This made COVID-19 the fourth leading cause of death that year.

By comparison, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in 2023 was tallied at 49,928, which amounts to a drop of 73.2 percent, the data show.

The percentage drop is somewhat smaller—68.9 percent—when considering COVID-19-associated deaths, meaning ones in which COVID-19 was either the underlying or contributing cause. In 2022, there were 245,614 COVID-19-associated deaths, compared to 76,446 last year.

The mortality numbers released on Friday are provisional. Because of the time needed to fully investigate causes of death and to review death certificate data, final annual mortality data for a given year aren’t released until around 11 months after year’s end. This means the final numbers won’t be available until sometime in November.

The CDC says the aim of releasing provisional data is to provide an early indication of shifts in mortality trends in order to guide public health policies meant to reduce mortality.

The COVID-19 death data that the CDC has been report more frequently in its COVID Data Tracker are also based on death certificates and, like the annual death data published on Aug. 8, come from the National Vital Statistics System. However, the tracker lists only COVID-19-associated death numbers, meaning ones in which COVID-19 was either the underlying or the contributing cause. Yet the high-frequency data, which show 2024 mortality figures up to July 27, paint a similar picture of waning COVID-19 deaths.

While the drop between 2023 and 2024 isn’t as dramatic as the 68.9 percent plunge from 2022 to 2023, it is still significant. Comparing the 2023 and 2024 seasonal winter peaks and summer lows, it appears that COVID-19-associated deaths have fallen by another 33.4 percent.

The calculation is based on a winter peak of 3,870 deaths for the week of Jan. 7, 2023, compared to 2,578 deaths for the week of Jan. 13, 2024, which is a 33.4 percent decrease. The summer low of 492 deaths for the week ended July 8, 2023, compared to 300 deaths for the week of June 8, 2024, also reflects a 33.4 percent decline.

Overall, both the annual data and the higher-frequency tracker numbers suggest that COVID-19 has become endemic, with the virus now behaving in a more predictable, seasonal pattern. This means it may have a significantly reduced impact on mortality, potentially comparable to that of seasonal influenza.

Seasonal flu typically causes between 4,900 and 51,000 deaths annually in the United States, per the CDC, depending on the severity of the flu season. While influenza can still be deadly, particularly for vulnerable populations, it is generally managed by a combination of individual preventive measures and medical interventions, such as antivirals and vaccines.

The side effects of flu vaccines, which have been widely administered for many years, are quite well-documented. The most serious are severe allergic reactions and a possible association with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a condition that can cause muscle weakness and paralysis. Health officials say that the risk of serious side effects is very low and the benefits of flu vaccination outweigh the risks for most people.

COVID-19 vaccines, by contrast, are much newer and their side effects are less well understood. The most common serious side effects include severe allergic reactions, blood clotting disorders, and inflammation of the heart muscle or the lining around the heart. Like with the flu vaccine, public health officials say that serious side effects are rare and that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines outweigh their risks for most people.

However, there has been considerable controversy around COVID-19 vaccines, particularly as evidence has emerged about side effects that were not detected in trials.

There are also questions about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, which center on the fact that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is continuously mutating and that vaccine development targets variants that may already be on the wane when the new shots are rolled out, which for some people may tilt the risk-benefit balance in the direction of nonvaccination, especially for less vulnerable populations.

The latest COVID-19 mortality data were released on the heels of a warning issued by the World Health Organization that COVID-19 infections are on the rise across the world, while urging governments to launch campaigns persuading more people to get vaccinated.

Despite the uptick in cases, there is no evidence yet that more people are dying from COVID-19. On the contrary, COVID-19-associated deaths are at their lowest since the pandemic.