During the summer, as the pandemic eased, the rate of excess mortality declined among older Americans but remained unusually high among young adults.

Other researchers, noting how educational levels affect income and life expectancy, have projected that the вЂњlearning lossвЂќ from school closures will ultimately cost this generation of students more years of life than have been lost by all the victims of the coronavirus.ДЄfter the pandemic began in March, the number of excess deaths in the United States rose for all American adults.

The United States will experience more than 1 million excess deaths in the United States during the next two decades as a result of the massive вЂњunemployment shockвЂќ last year, according to a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins and Duke, who analyzed the effects of past recessions on mortality. The deadly impact of lockdowns will grow in future years, due to the lasting economic and educational consequences. Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard Medical School, summarized the impact: вЂњLockdowns have protected the laptop class of young low-risk journalists, scientists, teachers, politicians and lawyers, while throwing children, the working class and high-risk older people under the bus.вЂќ During the spring, when it was estimated that 22 percent of all small businesses closed, 32 percent of Hispanic owners and 41 percent of black owners shut down. Minority-owned small businesses suffered more, too. Nearly 40 percent of workers in low-income households lost their jobs during the spring, triple the rate in high-income households. counties with more low-income households and minority residents, who were disproportionately affected by lockdowns.

The number of excess deaths not involving Covid-19 has been especially high in U.S. It was the steepest annual increase in the fatality rate per mile traveled in nearly a century, apparently due to more substance abuse and more high-speed driving on empty roads. The number of people killed last year in motor-vehicle accidents in the United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade, even though Americans did significantly less driving than in 2019. As unemployment surged and mental-health and substance-abuse treatment programs were interrupted, the reported levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts increased dramatically, as did alcohol sales and fatal drug overdoses. Researchers predicted that the social and economic upheaval would lead to tens of thousands of вЂњdeaths of despairвЂќ from drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicide. Social isolation contributed to excess deaths from dementia and AlzheimerвЂ™s. Many fewer people were screened for cancer. There was a sharp decline in visits to emergency rooms and an increase in fatal heart attacks due to failure to receive prompt treatment. But preliminary reports point to some obvious lockdown-related factors. Some of those deaths could be undetected Covid-19 cases, and some could be unrelated to the pandemic or the lockdowns. That measure rose among older Americans because of Covid-19, but it rose at an even sharper rate among people aged 15 to 54, and most of those excess deaths were not attributed to the virus. The best gauge of the pandemicвЂ™s impact is what statisticians call вЂњexcess mortality,вЂќ which compares the overall number of deaths with the total in previous years.

But one effect is clear: more deaths from other causes, especially among the young and middle-aged, minorities, and the less affluent. Now that the 2020 figures have been properly tallied, thereвЂ™s still no convincing evidence that strict lockdowns reduced the death toll from Covid-19.

United states total lockdown