metadata: - source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/opinion/covid-pandemic-deaths.html - people: [[David Wallace-Wells]] --- > ## Excerpt > Where are the country’s quite large numbers of deaths actually coming from? --- [Opinion](https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion)|Why Are So Many Americans Dying Right Now? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/opinion/covid-pandemic-deaths.html Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/opinion/covid-pandemic-deaths.html#after-top) You’re reading the David Wallace-Wells newsletter, for Times subscribers only.  The best-selling science writer and essayist explores climate change, technology, the future of the planet and how we live on it. About 1.1 million Americans have officially died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, a number that may be familiar by now. But here’s a less familiar one: According to one tabulation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 300,000 additional Americans have died over the past three years whom we would not have expected to in more normal times. “Excess mortality” uses historical and demographic trends to estimate “expected” deaths in a population. Demographers and epidemiologists and all the rest of us can use that baseline to measure surprises: an especially bad flu season, for instance, or a novel coronavirus causing a pandemic. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Death numbers are estimates, which have been adjusted by the C.D.C. to account for typical lags in the reporting of deaths. By Gus Wezerek Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Death numbers are estimates, which have been adjusted by the C.D.C. to account for typical lags in the reporting of deaths. By Gus Wezerek Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/opinion/covid-pandemic-deaths.html#after-bottom)