The agency only has preliminary data on the main causes of death in the past year and researchers are still combing those numbers, but provisional data suggest that Covid-19 may have caused enough deaths in 2020 to take third place, CDC statisticians told CNN by email.
“We still have only provisional data until December 26th. We should get more data soon,” said CDC statisticians. “Up to that point, we estimated that there were between 316,252 and 431,792 deaths in excess in 2020. Our data from the provisional death certificate up to that point show more than 301,000 deaths involving COVID-19, which would probably put it in 3rd place among the main causes of death.”
They added that “there is enough distance” between the number of deaths from cancer, the second leading cause in 2019, and those caused by accidents or unintentional injuries, the fourth leading cause in 2019, “to be comfortable saying” that Covid – 19 was the third leading cause in 2020.
In 2019, before the emergence of the coronavirus, the top 10 causes of death in the United States were:
- Heart disease (659,041)
- Cancer (599,601)
- Unintentional injuries (173,040)
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases (156,979)
- Stroke (150,005)
- Alzheimer’s disease (121,499)
- Diabetes (87,647)
- Nephritis (51,565)
- Flu and pneumonia (49,783)
- Suicide (47,511)
As of Tuesday morning, more than 353,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States so far, according to the Johns Hopkins University count.