The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans who die each day – from any cause – is no longer abnormal in history.
Excess deaths, as this number is known, has become an important measure of the true number of Covid because it does not depend on the dark assumption of deaths from a particular cause. Although Covid is not diagnosed, the statistics of excessive deaths can capture its effects. The statistic also captures the indirect effects of Covid, such as an increase in car crashes, gun deaths and deaths from missed medical treatment during the pandemic.
During the worst phase of Covid, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a staggering increase. For long periods of the past three years, the surplus was more than 10 percent. But in the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero, according to three different measures.
After three terrible years, during which Covid killed more than a million Americans and changed parts of daily life, the virus has become an ordinary disease.
The story is similar in many other countries, if not so positive:
The strength of immunity
Development usually comes from three factors:
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First, about three-quarters of US adults have received at least one vaccine.
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Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
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Third, post-infection treatments such as Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, have become widely available in the past year.
“Almost all deaths are preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who until recently was President Biden’s top Covid adviser. “We’re at the point where almost everyone is up to date on their vaccines and treated if they have Covid, they’re rarely hospitalized, they almost never die.”
That’s also true for most high-risk people, Jha points out, including the elderly — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people with compromised immune systems. “Even for most – not all but most – immunocompromised people, vaccines are still very effective in preventing serious illness,” he said. “There’s been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immunocompromised the vaccines won’t work.”
That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps this point: If Covid is still a serious threat to large numbers of people, that will show up in the data.
One point of confusion, I think, is the way many Americans – including us in the media – talk about the immunocompromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.
Most immunocompromised people are at little additional risk from Covid – even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of multiple cancers. A smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face an increased risk.
In vs. from
The number of Covid, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The CDC’s main page of Covid it is estimated that about 80 people per day have died from the virus in recent weeks, which equates to about 1 percent of total daily deaths.
The official number is likely an exaggeration because it includes some people who had the virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other CDC data suggest that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths fall into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusion.
However, some Americans are still dying of Covid. “I don’t know anyone who thinks we’re going to get rid of Covid,” Jha said.
Dr. told me Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, that “age is clearly the most important risk factor.” The victims of Covid are both older and less vaccinated. Because of vaccination politics, recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white.
Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that could be prevented – because someone did not receive available vaccines and treatments – seem tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
But the number of Covid deaths has now dropped enough that it is hardly noticeable in the overall death data. They can be filled with changes in other causes of death, such as influenza or car crashes.
Almost a year ago, President Biden angered some public health experts when he declared, “The pandemic is over.” He may have been premature to make that declaration. But the milestone of excess deaths suggests that it is now true: The pandemic is finally over.
Related: Researchers are working to ensure that developing countries do not have to rely rich countries for vaccines in the future pandemic, reports The Washington Post.
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