This is the deadliest year in US history, with deaths expected to top three million for the first time – due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic.
Final data for this year's mortalities will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the US is on track to record more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.
US deaths increase most years, so some annual rise in fatalities is expected. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15 per cent, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted.
That would mark the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of US soldiers died in the First World War and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a flu pandemic. Deaths rose 46 per cent that year, compared with 1917.
Covid-19 has killed more than 318,000 Americans and counting. Before it came along, there was reason to be hopeful about US death trends.
The nation’s overall mortality rate fell a bit in 2019, due to reductions in heart disease and cancer deaths. And life expectancy inched up – by several weeks – for the second straight year, according to death certificate data released on Tuesday by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But life expectancy for 2020 could end up dropping as much as three full years, said Robert Anderson of the CDC.
It counted 2,854,838 US deaths last year, or nearly 16,000 more than 2018. That’s fairly good news: deaths usually rise by about 20,000 to 50,000 each year, mainly due to the nation’s ageing, and growing, population.
Indeed, the age-adjusted death rate dropped about 1 per cent in 2019, and life expectancy rose by about six weeks to 78.8 years, the CDC reported.
“It was actually a pretty good year for mortality, as things go,” said Mr Anderson, who oversees CDC death statistics.
The US coronavirus epidemic has been a big driver of deaths this year, both directly and indirectly.
The virus was first identified in China last year, and the first US cases were reported this year. But it has become the third leading cause of death, behind only heart disease and cancer. For certain periods this year, Covid-19 was the main killer.
But some other types of deaths also have increased.
A burst of pneumonia cases early this year may have been Covid-19 deaths that simply were not recognised as such early in the epidemic. But there also have been an unexpected number of deaths from certain types of heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes and dementia, Mr Anderson said.
Many of those, too, may be related to Covid-19. The virus could have weakened patients already struggling with those conditions, or could have diminished the care they were getting, he said.
Early in the epidemic, some were optimistic that car crash deaths would drop as people stopped commuting or driving to social events. Data on that is not yet in, but anecdotal reports suggest there was no such decline.
Suicide deaths dropped in 2019 compared with 2018, but early information suggests they have not continued to drop this year, Mr Anderson and others said.
Drug overdose deaths, meanwhile, got much worse. Before the coronavirus even arrived, the US was in the midst of the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in its history.
Data for all of 2020 is not yet available. But last week the CDC reported more than 81,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12 months ending in May, making it the highest number recorded yet in a one-year period.
Experts think the pandemic’s disruption to in-person treatment and recovery services may have been a factor. People also are more likely to be taking drugs alone – without the benefit of a friend or family member who can call 911 or administer overdose-reversing medication.
But perhaps a bigger factor are the drugs themselves: Covid-19 caused supply problems for dealers, so they are increasingly mixing cheap and deadly fentanyl into heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, experts said.
“I don’t suspect there are a bunch of new people who suddenly started using drugs because of Covid. If anything, I think the supply of people who are already using drugs is more contaminated,” said Shannon Monnat, a Syracuse University researcher who studies drug overdose trends.
Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Specs
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LIVING IN...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Generation Start-up: Awok company profile
Started: 2013
Founder: Ulugbek Yuldashev
Sector: e-commerce
Size: 600 plus
Stage: still in talks with VCs
Principal Investors: self-financed by founder
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
What sanctions would be reimposed?
Under ‘snapback’, measures imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council in six resolutions would be restored, including:
- An arms embargo
- A ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing
- A ban on launches and other activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic missile technology transfer and technical assistance
- A targeted global asset freeze and travel ban on Iranian individuals and entities
- Authorisation for countries to inspect Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines cargoes for banned goods
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At a glance - Zayed Sustainability Prize 2020
Launched: 2008
Categories: Health, energy, water, food, global high schools
Prize: Dh2.2 million (Dh360,000 for global high schools category)
Winners’ announcement: Monday, January 13
Impact in numbers
335 million people positively impacted by projects
430,000 jobs created
10 million people given access to clean and affordable drinking water
50 million homes powered by renewable energy
6.5 billion litres of water saved
26 million school children given solar lighting
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
