The younger you are, the more your risk of death has risen during the COVID pandemic
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I crunched some stats this morning that are so wildly counter-intuitive that I’m going to post them before trying to break them down in terms of possible causation:
Per the CDC, here’s the change in the 12-month mortality rate between the third quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2021 — that is, through the second big COVID death wave — and the percentage of that increase that is accounted for by official COVID deaths. These are the most recent statistics available. (All these numbers are just for the USA. I have no idea if anything like this pattern is being seen elsewhere in the world).
Among 15-44 year old Americans all-cause mortality has increased by 31.7% over the course of the pandemic.
Among 45-64 year old Americans all-cause mortality has increased by 24.3% over the course of the pandemic.
Among Americans 65 year and older all-cause mortality has increased by 15.7% over the course of the pandemic.
The increase in the all-cause mortality rate among young adults during the pandemic has been more than double the increase in the all-cause mortality rate among the elderly. It has been 50% higher than the increase in the all-cause mortality rate among the middle-aged.
How is this possible? It’s well known that there’s an extraordinarily strong relationship between increasing age and increasing COVID death risk. In fact 65-74 year olds are 65 times more likely to die from COVID than are 18-29 year olds, while the comparable risk increases for 75-84 year olds and people 85 and older compared to 18-29 year olds are 140 times and 340 times, respectively. (Note that people in all age cohorts from five years old and up are equally likely to contract COVID, or at least to be recorded as having contracted it).
How is it possible that, if increasing COVID mortality risk has pretty much had the strongest possible direct relationship to increasing age, and people of all ages are equally likely to get COVID, all-cause mortality rate increases have nevertheless been inversely correlated with increasing age over the course of the pandemic? That would seem almost impossible from a first-cut statistical perspective.
The answer to this question begins with the observation that official COVID mortality — a huge caveat needless to say — accounts for very little of the total increase in all-cause mortality rates among young adults, while conversely it accounts for more than the total increase in all-cause mortality rates among the elderly.
The numbers:
Among Americans between the ages of 15 and 44, official COVID deaths account for 22.6% of the increase in the all-cause mortality rate over the course of the pandemic.
Among Americans between the ages of 45 and 64, official COVID deaths account for 63% of the increase in the all-cause mortality rate over the course of the pandemic.
Among Americans 65 and older, official COVID deaths account for 112% of the increase in the all-cause mortality rate over the course of the pandemic.
I’m going to dig into these numbers in more detail, especially in regard to changes in specific causes of death, but I wanted to throw the bottom line number out there now, because it’s so startling.