COVID deemed endemic, death rate drops

Editor's Note

COVID-19 can be considered endemic worldwide, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on the heels of reporting a drop in overall US death rates from the disease.

CDC’s classification of the disease as endemic “means, essentially, that COVID is here to stay in predictable ways,” according to an August 9 report in NPR. This definition of entrenched diseases is a sharp contrast from the previous definition of “pandemic,” which describes a dangerous new disease spreading widely.

The full NPR report includes testimony from various experts, including epidemiologists who disagree with the classification based on unpredictability. Regardless, official recommendations for responding to the virus have not changed.

Meanwhile, CDC data show that COVID-19 has dropped to the 10th leading cause of the United States, dropping from third early in the pandemic and fourth in 2022. According to an August 9 report in the Associated Press (AP), overall US deaths declined from 3.3 million in 2022 to 3.1 million in 2023. COVID made 2021 the deadliest year in US history at 3.4 million.

The leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer and a category of injuries that includes gun deaths and drug overdoses, AP reports. Although death rates were down for all groups, demographic disparities persist. Comparisons of age-adjusted death rates reveal the lowest rates among multiracial people and Asian Americans and the highest rates among Black people.