The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that COVID-19 has taken a disproportionate toll on Latinos and Blacks, as previous analyses have noted. But the CDC also found, surprisingly, that it has struck 25- to 44-year-olds very hard: Their “excess death” rate is up 26.5 percent over previous years, the largest change for any age group. It is not clear whether that spike is caused by the shift in COVID-19 deaths toward younger people between May and August or deaths from other causes, the CDC said. “Excess deaths” is a calculation by researchers of the number of deaths overall during a particular period compared to how many people die during the stretch in a normal year. It is an important calculation because some people who die might never have been tested for the disease, for example, and if people die at home without receiving medical care, they might not make it into the confirmed data. In the most updated count to date, CDC researchers found that nearly 300,000 more people in the United States died from late January to early October this year compared to the average number of people who died in recent years.
