The COVID-19 pandemic adds another 200,000 deaths (50%) to the annual toll of excess mortality in the United States

In “Excess Mortality in the United States in the 21st Century,” Samuel Preston and Yana Vierboom (1) bring attention to the magnitude of “excess mortality” in the United States. They show that there would have been 400,700 fewer deaths in this country in 2017 had the US sex- and age-specific death rates been comparable to those of five large European countries. To put this number in perspective, they remind us that this is more than the number...