Post the COVID pandemic, fatalities in the U.S. have returned to their pre-COVID trend line. Prior to COVID, fatalities in the U.S. were increasing by about 1.5% annually. This was a normal function of a slightly growing and aging population.

Of course, during the first two years of the pandemic (2020 & 2021), fatalities jumped by nearly 20%, about ten times what we would have expected to see had there been no pandemic. As natural and vaccination-induced immunity spread and therapeutic treatments improved, the fatality rate began to fall in 2022. That year, we had about 300,000 more fatalities than would have been expected without the pandemic. All told, we lost about 1.3 million more Americans than would ordinarily have been expected during those three years.

For the last three years, the actual fatalities have been almost exactly what we would have been expecting from pre-pandemic trends.

Some of us, including your correspondent, expected to see fatalities below trend after the pandemic due to mortality displacement. Mortality displacement is a demographic and actuarial term that refers to the phenomenon where some deaths that would have ordinarily been delayed for some number of years occur sooner because of an intervening event - in this case, COVID. So far, that has not materialized.

Of course, there are many factors that affect the number of Americans who die each year. For example, over the last decade, we have seen significant swings in accidental deaths from drug overdoses.

All other factors being equal, demographers expect fatalities to gradually increase. The CBO projections currently show that 2028 will be the last year that there will be more births in America than deaths – an ominous tipping point.

However, we are seeing amazing medical breakthroughs that could significantly extend life expectancy. GLP1s alone could have a dramatic impact, and we are regularly seeing new immunotherapy treatments for cancers being developed – just to name two.

But the main takeaway from the data is this – please ignore all the ridiculous nonsense you see on social media regarding all manner of government or health care industry cover-ups and conspiracies that are “killing millions of Americans.” Americans are dying at a rate that is exactly what we would expect based on our country’s demography.