September 2023
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Go to Yearly Analysis.
Go to Quarterly Analysis.
Go to Excess Deaths Page.
The data is based upon weekly deaths data from the US CDC spanning from 2015 to 2023.
Country: US
Source for Weekly Deaths (CDC): Weekly Counts of Death by Jurisdiction and Select Causes of Death.
Source for Vaccination data (CDC): COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States.
Source for Population Estimates (UN - Population division): UN table: Population estimates.
Comment on the available data and its limitations.
The CDC data on excess deaths and vaccination has several limitations that one should be aware of when analysing the charts below. Unlike the data from Eurostat (for European countries), the data for weekly deaths in the US is only available in broad age groups, namely (0-24, 25-44, 45-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85+ and Total). Any analysis of the data does not allow us to observe the excess mortality on younger age groups with sufficient detail.
The CDC data on vaccination for the US as a whole is classified in different age groups from the age groups for weekly deaths. This poses a problem of how to show excess deaths versus vaccination rates for different age groups. The available vaccination age groups provided by the CDC are such that after some manipulation of the data, we can obtain vaccination rates for the following age groups: (0-5, 6-12, 13-18, 19-65, 65+ and Total).
To solve this problem, in the charts below we decided to match the excess deaths and vaccination age groups in the following way:
| Excess Deaths Age Group | Vaccination Age Group |
|---|---|
| 0-25 | 0-18 |
| 25-44 | 19-65 |
| 45-64 | 19-65 |
| 65-74 | 65+ |
| 75-84 | 65+ |
| 85+ | 65+ |
| Total | Total |
In order to estimate weekly excess mortality we perform a 2-step approach to estimate the baseline deaths. The first step is by estimating the trend in death rates using annual data as described in our methodology papers, while using method 2C.
The second step is to estimate weekly excess deaths by comparing deaths or death rates in a given week with the average death rate, which is computed using the average weekly frequency of deaths over a period of N-years (typically 5 to 10 years depending on the data availability). By using both methods in conjunction we obtain a trend adjusted and week of year adjusted estimate for excess mortality.
Our analysis computes both excess death rates and excess deaths, which are obtained by multiplying the excess death rates with population estimates for the given year.
Weekly data provides a granularity that allows us to investigate the impact of immediate vaccination deaths, lockdowns, or other effects, on excess mortality.
The following chart shows the analysis of excess mortality for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 for different age groups. The Covid-19 vaccinations data (right hand scale) refers to the total accumulated doses for 2021 and 2022, as a percentage of the respective age group population.
Please be aware that for the US, the vaccination age groups do not match perfectly the excess deaths age groups as mentioned before. We matched the age groups as described in the data section above.
The user can specify the method for estimating excess mortality.
The following chart allows the user to compare the trends in excess mortality during 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, for the different age groups.
This chart is particularly interesting to investigate excess mortality for older versus younger individuals as the pandemic evolved. In most developed countries, Covid-19 vaccination started to be rolled out in early 2021 and accelerated in March 2021. Vaccine penetration rates achieved high penetration in the population in most of these countries (including the UK).
The interactive chart allows the user can specify the year for evaluating the excess deaths.
PHINANCE TECHNOLOGIES