Covid was responsible for just 1 percent of weekly all-cause deaths in the US, data from the CDC shows.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Covid dashboard shows that there were 324 Covid deaths recorded in the week ending Aug. 19 — just 1.7 percent of the total number of deaths that week.
By comparison, the virus was responsible for one in three deaths from any cause during the peak of the 2021 US pandemic.
Only 1.7 percent of the 324 all-cause deaths in the week ending Aug. 19 mentioned the virus
The primary or underlying cause of death is defined as the illness, situation, or event that initiated the chain of events that led directly to death. IMAGE: People in masks wait before entering Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida in July 2020
The rate of Covid deaths in the week ending August 19 represents a slight increase from the previous week and continues a five-week upward trend, but is a drastic drop from the peak of the pandemic, when 30 percent of Covid deaths as a cause.
Covid data shows that Washington, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland and New York all have higher death rates due to Covid. Maryland and Florida have the highest percentage, at 3.4 percent.
Washington, Tennessee, North Carolina and New York all hover around 2 percent.
More than twenty states have experienced just one to nine deaths from Covid in the week ending August 19
Data also shows that the death rate among women is slightly higher than among men, and that the death rate is highest among people aged 75 and over.
The new Covid data will be reassuring at a time when panic is mounting in the US as highly transmissible new Covid variants are circulating, leading to increased infections and hospitalizations and the re-implementation of some Covid mandates.
New variants EG.5, or Eris, and BA.8.26, or Pirola, have recently been detected in several countries around the world and in the US.
These variants are highly mutated and are believed to be better at avoiding vaccine and natural immunity, causing more infections.
The number of infections in the US appears to have doubled with the emergence of these variants and hospitalizations among people with the virus have risen for a fifth week in a row – but still remain at a near-historic low.
Crucially, however, the number of deaths from Covid is not rising rapidly.
Panic over a Covid resurgence last week caused Hollywood film studio Lionsgate to strengthen mask mandates and ask its employees to wear face coverings in its Santa Monica, California offices. Only a few days later, however, the film studio reversed its decision.
The graph above shows the percentage of positive Covid cases (brown line) and the weekly number of new Covid hospitalizations (blue bars) as of the week ending August 12.
Rutgers University in New Jersey and Morris Brown College in Georgia both announced last week that face masks will once again be mandatory for staff and students.
In addition, Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Santa Rosa, California, and Upstate Community Hospital in Syracuse, New York, have both brought back mask mandates for doctors, nurses, patients, and visitors.
Last week, Kentucky’s Lee County School District canceled classes less than two weeks after opening because nearly a fifth of its students were sick with a “tripledemic” illness, including Covid, strep throat and the flu.
On Friday, President Biden said his administration will “likely” recommend that Americans receive another Covid booster vaccine in the coming weeks.
He signed a bill Friday asking Congress for more funding to update Covid vaccines to better protect against the new variants.
However, there is little interest among Americans in receiving boosters and only 18 percent of eligible Americans have received some version of a booster.