US suffers more than 1 mln excess deaths during pandemic: The Guardian

LONDON - There have been more than 1 million excess deaths in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Guardian said in a recent report.

The deaths are mainly attributable to COVID-19, as well as conditions that may have resulted from delayed medical care and overwhelmed health systems, the report quoted figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as saying.

At least 923,000 Americans have died from confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the US CDC. Other causes of death above the normally expected number include heart disease, hypertension and Alzheimer's disease.

Excess deaths are also known as untimely or "early" deaths, The Guardian explained, adding while the majority of excess deaths in the United States occurred among those 65 and older, many of those Americans had many years left to live.

Excess deaths are calculated based on previous years' fatalities. In 2019, there were 2.8 million deaths in the United States. In 2020, it was approximately 3.3 million, the report noted.

Many Americans delayed seeking care during the pandemic, and others saw the quality of their care worsen as the country's healthcare system was overburdened by COVID-19, it said.

The United States is also in the midst of an overdose crisis, with more than 100,000 overdose deaths in the first year of the pandemic, the report added.