The CDC study found that the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, has taken a disproportionate toll on Latinos and Blacks. The CDC also found that COVID-19 deaths hit 25- to 44-year-olds extremely hard with an “excess death” rate up by 26.5 percent in relation to previous years. This was the largest death jump among any age group in the study.
“The number of people dying from this pandemic is higher than we think,” Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, told The Washington Post. “This study shows it. Others have as well.”
The data covered the period Feb. 1 to Sept. 16. Woolf said the COVID-19 deaths are likely to hit 400,000 by the end of the year. The numbers were assembled by the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the CDC.