What Killed More Young Americans in 2020?
Covid or Alcohol?
Looking at the data for 2020 on the CDC website, the following numbers emerge in total deaths:
2020 Covid Deaths US by Age:
<1 yrs: 43*
1–4 yrs: 24*
5–14 yrs: 67*
15–24 yr: 587
25–34 yrs: 2,527
35–44 yrs: 6,617
45–54 yrs: 17,905
55–64 yrs: 44,631
(*To note: a grand total of 134 children died of Covid in 2020, can someone please explain to me why we are mass vaccinating them again? Especially when we KNOW it doesn’t stop transmission to protect Grandma?)
Ahmad FB, Cisewski JA, Miniño A, Anderson RN. Provisional Mortality Data — United States, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:519–522. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7014e1external icon
A recent JAMA study published March 18, 2022 shows some grim findings of the number of people who died of alcohol related deaths in 2020:
16-24 yrs: 1,402 (2.4X Covid)
25-34 yrs: 7,427 (~3X Covid)
35-44 yrs: 13,490 (2X Covid)
45-54 yrs: 20,243 (1.1X, on par with Covid)
55-64 yrs: 31,846 (Covid surpassed)
Relative Change in alcohol related deaths from 2019-2020:
16-20 yrs: 29.8% increase
21-24 yrs: 25.6% increase
25-34 yrs: 37% increase
35-44 yrs: 39.7% increase
45-54 yrs: 22.9% increase
55-64 yrs: 21.7% increase
White AM, Castle IP, Powell PA, Hingson RW, Koob GF. Alcohol-Related Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA. Published online March 18, 2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.4308
Basically, in the 16-44 yr old group we saw ~2.5X the number of people die from alcohol than Covid.
That doesn’t even take into account opioid and other overdose related deaths, nor does it account for suicides.