Leading Causes of Death
There’s no doubt that COVID19 will be a top 10 leading cause of death in 2020. This is quite impressive given that the other diseases on this list typically take YEARS to manifest and are NOT contagious.
The interesting question is... what will COVID19's exact rank be at the end of the year? It’s been a while since I updated this chart. This graph always stirs up discussion, so I added some more sophisticated analyses to address concerns. Let’s see if I can explain it…
I estimated three COVID19 ranks for the US and 8 other states. I used COVID19 deaths (up to last night) and compared to 2019 causes of death.
Low estimate (green): This estimates COVID19’s rank if the pandemic ended yesterday (i.e. everyone with COVID19 was cured overnight). Unfortunately, we know this isn’t true, but this is the absolute MINIMUM rank COVID19 will be.
Medium estimate (orange): This estimates COVID19’s rank if we continue on our death trajectory.
High estimate (red): This estimates COVID19’s rank if we continue on our trajectory AND we count ALL excess deaths as COVID19 deaths. I understand that, in reality, all excess deaths are not likely COVID19, but this is the HIGHEST rank COVID19 could be.
So, in the United States, COVID19 will lie between the 3rd (high estimate) and 6th (low estimate) leading cause of death in 2020. In reality, it will be somewhere in the middle. In March, we (epidemiologists) estimated it would be 3rd leading cause of death in 2020. Looks like that’s going to be about right.
In Texas, COVID19 will lie between the 3rd (high estimate), 5th (medium), and 9th (low estimate) leading cause of death. Again, it will likely fall somewhere in between by the end of the year.
For CA, FL, AZ, NY, LA, WA, and IL rankings, see the following graphs. This is all I could get done before my eyes started shutting last night.
Lately, the flu debate has come to surface again. In EVERY state, COVID19 lowest possible rank is still higher than flu. So, I’m not really sure why we are still having this conversation...
Love, your local epidemiologist
Note: Yes, the 2019 numbers will also change this year. But this is the best we got, as CDC only reports these in aggregate form at the end of the year. It will actually be interesting, though, how other ranks change. For example, we know car crashes (unintentional injuries) have decreased while suicide has increased.
Data Sources: 2019 data is from the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC. COVID19 deaths is from Johns Hopkins (US). Excess deaths is from the Weinburg lab. Graphs/analyses by yours truly.