Coronavirus has become the leading cause of death in the United States, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that the seven-day rolling average of deaths due to COVID-19 is currently 2,430 deaths per day, three-fold higher than the figure one month ago.
The respiratory disease is claiming 1.4 times as many lives per day as heart disease does and 1.5 times as many as cancer does.
What’s more, it means the daily mortality rate for COVID-19 in the U.S. is equivalent to the 9/11 attacks – which led to 2,988 lives lost – occurring every 1.5 days.
The team, from Virginia Commonwealth University, says it is ‘more urgent’ than ever for Americans to wear mask and practice social distancing over fears that death rates will only continue to rise as people gather for the holiday season.
It comes as daily death tolls continue to ride with a record 3,656 American deaths recorded on Wednesday.
Between November 1 and December 13, the seven-day rolling average for daily COVID-19 deaths tripled from 826 to 2,430
By comparison, seven-day rolling average mortality rates for heart disease and cancer are 1,700 deaths per day and 1,600 deaths per day, respectively. Pictured: Sammie Michael Dent, Jr., the grandson of Florence Bolton, who died of COVID-19, looks at her casket at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois, December 9
For the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the team looked at the three leading causes of death for 10 age groups ranging from infancy to old age.
Data on COVID-19 mortality rates came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between March and October 2020.
Meanwhile, data for the other causes of death was aggregated from March to October 2018, the most recent period for which complete data is available.
By October 2020, COVID-19 became the second-leading cause of death for adults aged 85 and older, after heart disease.
Among Americans between ages 45 and 84, the disease was the third-leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.
‘Adults 45 years or older were more likely to die from COVID-19 during those months than from chronic lower respiratory disease, transport accidents, drug overdoses, suicide, or homicide,’ the authors wrote.
However, those under age 45 were more likely to die from drug overdoses, suicide, cancer and car accidents, than coronavirus.
The team notes that these rates are the aggregate eight-month mortality rates and not the current mortality rate.
Researchers found that, between November 1 and December 13, the seven-day rolling average for daily COVID-19 deaths tripled from 826 to 2,430.
Heart disease and cancer lead to approximately 1,700 deaths per day and 1,600 deaths per day, respectively.
This means that COVID-19 has become deadlier than heart disease and cancer, and this rate may increase and people travel and gather for Christmas.
The team says the true number of deaths could be much higher, as much as 20 percent, due to underestimations of excess deaths.
‘The failure of the public and its leaders to take adequate steps to prevent viral transmission has made the nation more vulnerable, allowing COVID-19 to become the leading cause of death in the United States,’ the authors wrote.
‘The prospect of a vaccine offers hope for 2021, but that solution will not come soon enough to avoid catastrophic increases in COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths.
‘The need for the entire population to take the disease seriously – notably to wear masks and maintain social distance – could not be more urgent.’