During the Early Pandemic, There Were Large Racial Gap in Rates of Death

A new report from the United States Census Bureau presents data on death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data shows that in 2019 before the onset of the pandemic, 351,097 African Americans died. In 2020, when the pandemic took hold, 456,491 African Americans died. This was an increase of 29.7 percent.

In contrast, the number of deaths for the population as a whole increased by 18.5 percent from 2019 to 2020. The number of death for White Americans increased by 16.4 percent. The number of death among Hispanic Americans rose by a whopping 44 percent. During the pandemic’s first year, every race group other than the White population experienced single-year percentage increases higher than the 18.5 percent increase in deaths for the total population.

In 2021, when vaccines became widely available, the number of Black deaths remained very similar to 2020 but the number of deaths among White Americans rose 2.7 percent. In 2022, the number of deaths for Blacks and Whites declined.

 

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1 COMMENT

  1. It is shocking that so little attention is being paid to the enormous increase in mortality that occurred because of COVID 19. Right now COVID should still be among the most important subjects in the news, in the management of our medical system, and in the decisions being taken every day by our political leaders.
    Instead, it’s an issue that’s been put on the back burner and there is business as usual with China, etc.

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