Almost All Deaths Declined Pre-Pandemic
Almost All Deaths Declined Pre-Pandemic
But that trend existed across most major causes of deaths, not just heart disease according to multiple cause of death data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Eight of the largest causes of mortality based on International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code—those related to the digestive system, nervous system, respiratory system, neoplasms (e.g. cancer-related), and even external causes—were all in relative decline since around 2016.
Additionally, almost all of them also saw a marked increase in 2020, except for respiratory diseases, which continued to see declines through the pandemic. Deaths due to COVID-19 appear to be classified under a special ICD category for now.
Overall, mortality growth had been steadily increasing since 2006, largely attributed to the growing elderly population. But 2017 is when it would turn the other way and start decreasing.
For some ICD categories, the decline in mortality started in 2016. For others, like digestive diseases and nervous system diseases, it was 2015 and 2017 respectively. Diseases of the respiratory system is one ICD category that did not see a marked uptick in 2020.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, there would be 528,891 additional deaths from 2019 to 2020. In the CDC data, 384,669 COVID-19 deaths would be coded under “Codes for Special Purposes”—a catch-all ICD code that is otherwise rarely used.
Cause of death data has many caveats and there are ongoing corrections as to how mortality is coded, but the trend affects total deaths.
