A new Centers for Disease Control report shows 94% of people who died after contracting COVID-19 had contributing health conditions.
Our thought bubble, via Axios’ Sam Baker: This report doesn’t mean that COVID isn’t as bad as we thought. It’s clear from the CDC’s statistics on excess deaths that more people are dying than usual, because of COVID. The fact that common pre-existing medical conditions often coincide with deadly coronavirus infections is part of what makes it scary — not a reason to write it off.
The big picture: The cause of death was listed as solely the novel coronavirus in 6% of cases in the U.S. from Feb. 1 to Aug. 22, according to the CDC.
- For deaths with conditions or causes as well as the novel coronavirus, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.
Of note: The CDC reports the leading underlying medical conditions related to coronavirus deaths:
- Influenza and pneumonia.
- Respiratory failure.
- Hypertensive disease.
- Diabetes.
- Vascular and unspecified dementia.
- Cardiac arrest.
- Heart failure.
- Renal failure.
- Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events.
- Other medical conditions.
By the numbers: In the U.S., more than 183,000 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus as of Sunday night, per Johns Hopkins data.
- Almost 6 million have tested positive and over 2.2 million have recovered.