Friday, April 23rd, 2021
Local virus deaths follow national trend
By Leslie Gartrell
CELINA - Mercer and Auglaize counties followed a national trend in 2020 as COVID-19 contributed to excess deaths of local residents and Americans at large.
According to a Daily Standard analysis of obituaries submitted to the newspaper from 2017-2021, more than 200 additional obituaries were submitted in 2020 than in the three years prior.
Obituaries totaled 1,285 in 2020, 1,000 in 2019, and 1,039 in both 2018 and 2017.
Obituaries submitted in April, when the first death from COVID-19 was reported in the area, through December 2020 yielded similar results.
From April-December 2020, 982 obituaries were submitted to the newspaper compared with 730 submitted during the same time period in 2019. A total of 735 obituaries were submitted in 2018 and 736 were submitted in 2017 also during the same time period.
In November 2020 alone, a month when COVID-19 cases and deaths spiked in Mercer and Auglaize counties, The Daily Standard received 161 obituaries, more than double the 79 obituaries the newspaper received in November 2019. In November 2018, 80 obituaries were received and in November 2017, 70 were received.
Photo by Jason Snyder/The Daily Standard
Number of obituaries in The Daily Standard by year.
Increased local deaths mirrored a national trend. According to provisional mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3.3 million deaths occurred in the U.S. in 2020 - the deadliest year in U.S. history.
U.S. deaths increase most years, so some annual increase in fatalities is expected. However, the CDC says the annual rise in 2020 jumped by nearly 16%, from 715.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 828.7 in 2020.
According to CDC data, the 2020 increase is the highest since 1918 - when, in the midst of World War I, hundreds of thousands of people died of a flu. By comparison, the death rate decreased by 1.2% in 2019 compared with 2018.
COVID-19 was reported as the underlying cause of death or a contributing cause of death for an estimated 377,883 (about 11%) of total deaths in 2020. The CDC says COVID-19 replaced suicide as one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.
The virus was a big driver of deaths in 2020, both directly and indirectly, according to the CDC. An unexpected number of deaths from certain types of heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes and dementia also occurred in 2020, CDC data shows.
In the U.S., COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 2020, after heart disease and cancer. Mercer County had similar results.
The top three causes of death in Mercer County were heart disease, 149 deaths; cancer, 54 deaths; and stroke, 19 deaths, according to the Mercer County Health District's 2020 annual report.
However, 65 Mercer County residents had died from COVID-19 by Dec. 31, 2020, according to information from the county health district. Health administrator Jason Menchhofer said COVID-19 was the primary cause of death for 30 of those 65 deaths.
Although not listed as one of the top five leading causes of death in 2020, Menchhofer agreed it would be fair to say COVID-19 was a leading cause of death for the county.
In Auglaize County, the leading causes of death in 2020 were heart disease, 124 deaths; cancer, 91 deaths; and Alzheimer's Disease, 24 deaths, according to the county health department's annual report. Yet officials recorded 45 deaths from COVID-19 by Dec. 31, 2020.
Health commissioner Oliver Fisher said COVID-19 was not listed as a leading cause of death in the county because the department's list consisted of primary causes of death.
Fisher said it was rare to see COVID-19 listed as the primary cause of death and that COVID-19 more often was a contributing or secondary cause of death. He was not sure how many county death certificates listed COVID-19 as the primary cause of death.
Excess deaths trended locally, statewide and nationally in 2020.
According to a study by researchers at the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, the U.S. had 522,368 excess deaths between March 1, 2020, and January 2, 2021, nearly 23% more than expected. Deaths attributed to COVID-19 accounted for 72.4% of U.S. excess deaths.
The study said excess deaths were increasing in all regions at the end of 2020.
Ohio was one of the top-10 states with the highest per capita rate of excess deaths alongside Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, South Dakota, New Mexico and North Dakota.
