How many people die each year in the United States?

August 24, 2020. Recently, I heard report of a survey of Americans where they estimated that about 9% of the American population had already died of the Covid virus this year; that would be about 30 million people. As of today, the figure is closer to 175,000, or about 0.05%.

To put this in perspective, the annual number of deaths in the United Sates this year will be about three million people (see TOTAL DEATHS graph). That number has risen consistently and significantly since 2009, when about 2.43 million Americans died, so the annual count is up about 500,000 in ten years. Had there been no Covid, we would expect about three million deaths in 2020. It will be interesting to see the final figure.

In searching for data, I was unable to locate an American death total for 2019. The last year where I found data was for 2018, with 2,839,205 deaths (see below).

And one other figure jumped out from my internet pages (see Total deaths in the UK in 2020, below). A report on deaths in the United Kingdom through the first fifteen weeks of 2020 showed a death count lower than it had been in 2018. Yes, by the next week the figure had jumped ahead, yet a recent Tony Heller video featured that the rate dipped below the previous rate through the first six months of the year.

Also of interest, I found United Nations data on projections for annual global deaths for the next seventy years. One manifestation of lower birth rates and longer life expectancies means that we should expect a sharp increase in the number of deaths worldwide beginning about now. In 2020, the United Nations projected (pre-Covid) about 58 million people will die in 2020. By 2060 -- in forty years -- that number will be about 100 million. Global population is growing -- slower than before yet still growing -- and the infant mortality rate remains low. Historically -- at least until 200 years ago -- about half of children died before their fifth birthday. Today, the rate is much lower, down at least 80% and down even more in countries with good medical professionals, medicines and facilities, good public hygiene, good neonatal care, i.e., educated women.

I find no joy in the politics and government policies behind these data. People are fearful of Covid at a level not at all proportionate to its real impact. The problem lies primarily with liberal/progressive governors and mayors, aided and abetted by an idiotic press corps whose primary goal is to get Donald Trump out of office.