A recent study completed by the National Center for Health Sciences (NCHS) claimed COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, following behind heart disease and cancer.
Moreover, the death rate for males due to COVID-19 was 50% higher than for females.
The study classified COVID deaths by age, sex, and county and further categorized the counties into six divisions ranging from “noncore rural” to “large metropolitan” counties.
While the overall rate of age-adjusted COVID deaths in 2020 was 85.0 per 100,000 (0.085%), with 99.915% of the population surviving, large central metropolitan areas saw a death rate of 97.7 per 100,000 (0.0977%).
Small and medium metropolitan areas showed the lowest death rate, at 78.2 per 100,000 (0.0782%) and 75.0 per 100,000 (0.075%), respectively.
However, when taking into account both gender and urbanicity, those figures differ somewhat. Males in large metropolitan areas had a COVID death rate of 129.3 per 100,000 (0.1293%), and males in medium metropolitan areas had the lowest rate at 93.6 per 100,000 (0.0936%).
Women, on the other hand, had the highest COVID mortality rate in the smallest “noncore rural” communities, at 73.8 per 100,000 (0.0738%), followed closely by women in “large metropolitan” areas, at 72.8 per 100,000 (0.0728%). The lowest COVID death rate for women was found in the “medium metropolitan areas,” at 59.9 per 100,000 (0.0599%).
For males under 65, the highest and lowest mortality rates were in the “large metropolitan” and “small metropolitan” areas, respectively, at 41.5 and 26.4 per 100,000 (0.0415% and 0.0264%).
For females under 65, the highest COVID mortality rates were found in the smallest “noncore rural” communities, at 24.2 per 100,000 (0.0242%), while the lowest rate was in the “large fringe metropolitan” areas, at 13.6 per 100,000 (0.0136%), with a survival rate of 99.986%.
In all areas and communities, the COVID mortality rate for males was significantly higher than for females. While the NCHS study did not examine the reasons for this disparity, other studies have suggested that men tend to have more underlying health issues, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, that could have worsened the COVID-19 outcome.
Men are also more likely to delay seeking medical care and are more lax in their masking habits. In addition, women tend to have stronger immune systems, The Wall Street Journal reported.
While current COVID-19 rates are far below pandemic levels, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claimed COVID was on pace to be the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. for the third year in a row.
For the week ending October 19, the CDC recorded 2,566 COVID-related deaths, an average of 366 per day. The CDC has recorded 1,065,152 COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. since April 1, 2020.
Covid-related death counts are provisional, the CDC said, with just 6% of people dying because of COVID-19 (as opposed to “with COVID”).
The CDC stats show that with fatality rates between 0.0136% and 0.1293%, the majority of people in every population faced an infinitesimal risk of death from COVID-19, whether they lived in rural or metropolitan counties.