The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal since the early 1900s — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic.

A surge in deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic created the largest gap between the actual and expected death rate in 2020 — what epidemiologists call “excess deaths,” or deaths above normal.

Aside from fatalities directly attributed to Covid-19, some excess deaths last year were most likely undercounts of the virus or misdiagnoses, or indirectly related to the pandemic otherwise. Preliminary federal data show that overdose deaths have also surged during the pandemic.

A New York Times analysis of U.S. death patterns for the past century shows how much 2020 deviated from the norm.

A shift in a downward trend

Since the 1918 pandemic, the country’s death rate has fallen steadily. But last year, the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted that trend, in spite of a century of improvements in medicine and public health.

Death rate in the U.S. over time

1,0002,0003,000 deaths per 100,000191019181933195020002020

Data before 1933 do not include all states.

1918 flu pandemic

Covid-19 pandemicabout:blank

In the first half of the 20th century, deaths were mainly […]