https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/06/unexplained-excess-deaths-persist-in-post-covid-era/
According to data reported weekly by the CDC, the death rate in America remains elevated. In the six years prior to the COVID era, deaths in the United States averaged between 2.6 and 2.8 million people per year. These averages are adjusted for population growth, and with a population as large as the U.S., the numbers should be, and are, remarkably stable. During the three years immediately preceding the 2020, for example, the population growth adjusted death rate from all causes varied by only 1.5 percent.
None of that is true today. The increase in total deaths – deaths from all causes, not just COVID deaths – is up significantly. If the period between October 2019 and June 2023 had adhered to predictable mortality rates, 10.5 million Americans would have died. Instead, during that period, 12.4 people died. This prolonged period of so-called excess deaths, 17 percent above normal, is only rivaled by the estimated 675,000 deaths from Spanish Flu in America in 1918-19 when the country had a much smaller population.
To illustrate how aberrant these grim statistics are, the chart below plots on a blue line the actual weekly deaths from all causes in the United States from the Fall of 2019 through the Spring of 2023. The grey line plots how many deaths would have occurred if mortality rates had adhered to predictable trends based on highly consistent statistics from the six prior years, 2013 through 2019. The data is indisputable, even if the causes remain mired in controversy. During the so-called COVID era, nearly 2.0 million people are dead who, if it had been normal times, would still be alive today.
There appears to be no end in sight, even though the horrific surges appear to be behind us. As shown on the right edges of the chart, going into the summer of 2023, weekly deaths from all causes remained persistently higher than normal. For example, during the last week of June, which is the most recent week for which there is reasonably complete reporting, 55,000 Americans died. Based on historical patterns, only 51,000 Americans would have died. Excess deaths in the U.S. are still about 7 percent above normal.