Health articles
How did COVID-19 affect people in the US?
Note: This page is no longer being updated. This data was aggregated from national and state sources. As of July 2023, data collection and updates by federal, state, and local agencies was less comprehensive than in previous years.
What are the top causes of death for people 65 and older?
The top two causes of death for senior citizens in 2023 were heart diseases and cancer at 935.7 and 778.7 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Cerebrovascular diseases (237.7 per 100,000 people), chronic lower respiratory diseases (212.0 per 100,000), and Alzheimer disease (190 per 100,000) followed as the next most common causes of death for seniors. COVID-19 was a top-five cause of death among adults 65 and older from 2020 to 2022, but was surpassed by Alzheimer’s disease in 2023.
Just the Facts about US healthcare and the health of Americans
Americans have faced many health challenges in recent years, from opioid addiction to COVID-19. And accidental deaths are rising. So what does the government spend on health for its citizens?
How much is spent on personal healthcare in the US?
Between the money spent by private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and people making out-of-pocket payments, America spent a total of $4.5 trillion on personal healthcare in 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Who has health insurance? Are rates going up?
According to the Census Bureau 92.0% of people in the US had health insurance in 2024. In the past 10 years, the share of people covered by health insurance has been above 90%. Health insurance provides Americans with access to healthcare and offers financial coverage during medical emergencies. Most Americans are insured, but insurance rates still change from year to year due to economic trends (such as those related to COVID-19), demographic shifts (including an aging population), and public policy changes.
How does the government count COVID-19 deaths?
The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US since the pandemic began topped 700,000 in October. This makes the virus the nation’s third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.Those numbers are preliminary, and the official data will not be complete until at least a year after the government officially ends the public health emergency for the pandemic. With both the provisional and official data tracking causes of death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requires anyone certifying death information to follow international standards from the World Health Organization.When an individual dies, there’s often multiple contributing conditions or factors. Those can create challenges for tracking the cause of death in government data.
How prepared is the US for COVID-19 and who's at risk?
How prepared are our hospitals?While there is no perfect measure of how the healthcare system is equipped to deal with an influx of novel coronavirus patients, it’s important to consider how many hospital beds are in the US. As of 2018, the US had approximately 924,000 hospital beds, or 2.8 beds per 1,000 people. This is less than half the number of hospital beds per person that there was in 1980.At the last count in 2015, approximately 65.5% of all hospital beds are already occupied at any one time.
How has COVID-19 impacted air travel?
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the air travel industry hard. The number of monthly passengers on US-based airlines dropped 96% from 67.8 million in February to 3 million in April according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Though that number has rebounded somewhat, September passenger levels were still down by 65% compared to September 2019, according to preliminary BTS data. As the nation grapples with a record number of coronavirus infections heading into the holiday season, the industry faces another period of uncertainty.Government data shows the industry has partially recovered from the early days of the pandemic but remains behind previous years.
Who is eligible for the second COVID-19 booster?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in March 2022 that adults over 50 years old and immunocompromised individuals were eligible to receive their second COVID-19 booster.Through July 2022, 21.2 million people ages 50 and up received a second booster. This represents about 30% of the 50 or older population in the US. About 1.3 million adults younger than 50 years old also received a second booster.
What’s the state of telehealth after COVID-19?
Telehealth became more widely used throughout the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data indicates that about 80% of physicians plan to continue using it. At the beginning of the pandemic, telehealth visits increased from about 5 million to more than 53 million among Medicare recipients alone. Data collected from April 14, 2021, through August 8, 2022, shows that while telehealth usage rates peaked during the pandemic, they remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.What is telehealth?The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defines telehealth as access to a healthcare provider without an in-person office visit. This includes video chats over computers, tablets, or phones.Telehealth also includes phone calls and digital communication with a provider, such as email or data exchange through a portal. It may also encompass the use of remote monitoring devices like a blood pressure monitor or glucose meter.Interest in telehealth was slowly rising until spring 2020, when the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns made it a necessity. To promote contact-free prevention measures, former President Donald Trump expanded Medicare’s telehealth benefits via executive action, granting millions of Americans access to telehealth services. Up until then, Medicare coverage for telehealth was only available in very specific circumstances.The term telehealth is often used interchangeably with telemedicine. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, telemedicine refers to clinical services, while telehealth includes non-clinical services. For example, non-clinical services may include things like administrative meetings, while clinical services include patient consultations.However, the official Medicaid website no longer uses the term telemedicine, and instead refers to all consultations, diagnoses, meetings, and health assessments completed across a distance as telehealth.What are the differences between telehealth and in-person care?The differences between telehealth and in-person care depend on the patient’s condition. For example, telehealth may be appropriate for consultations, follow-up visits, or common ailments. However, it may be less suitable for conditions that require a physical examination or bloodwork.Telehealth protects patients from potential exposure to communicable diseases in the doctor’s office. Virtual doctor visits give patients access to specialists who may otherwise be inaccessible because they live too far away.However, telehealth may prove more challenging than in-person care for either provider or patient if they have difficulty communicating via video chat. Some telehealth providers may need to make appropriate accommodations for patients with disabilities.Not everyone has access to the broadband internet necessary to access video telehealth services. Others may not have the technical knowledge required to operate telehealth platforms or monitoring devices.
Has COVID-19 disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic Americans?
In 2020, COVID-19 death rates for Black and Hispanic people were higher than rates for non-Hispanic white and Asian people across age groups. More than 0.5% of Black and 0.7% of Hispanic people aged 65 to 74 died from COVID-19 — higher than the 0.2% of non-Hispanic white people in this age group who died from coronavirus.
48% of Americans are feeling down, depressed, or hopeless during the COVID-19 pandemic
In addition to affecting health and employment, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the mental and emotional state of Americans. More recent events, including the death of George Floyd and weeks of nationwide protests against police brutality and racism, have also amplified stressors for mental health.Beginning on April 23, 2020, the US Census Bureau started conducting its Household Pulse Survey to study “how people’s lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”The Census Bureau sent questionnaires to an average of 1.24 million households every week in the first eight weeks of the survey. About 7.5% of those households responded.The four questions related to depression and anxiety offer up-to-date information on Americans’ mental health nationwide, in individual states, and amongst various demographic groups. The most recent data released was collected between June 18 and 23.The results show high levels of anxiety and depression compared with a similar annual survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2018 (it should be noted that the CDC survey asked a different question than the Census Bureau).The numbers further indicate continuing increases in rates of anxiety and depression among Americans over the past several weeks. A previous version of this article discussed the data collected between May 21 and 26, prior to the death of George Floyd. Compared to these numbers, even more Americans are experiencing anxiety and depression than before.When it comes to anxiety, 60% of American adults experienced “frequency of feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge” in the last seven days, an increase of 5 percentage points since May. Over a quarter of all respondents reported feeling that way more than half of the days in the last week.
How widespread is the flu right now?
Influenza and other flu-like illness accounted for about 4.6% of all doctor’s visits during the week ending February 7, 2026. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu patients occupied 1.6% of hospital beds nationwide, and one state has “high” or “very high” levels of respiratory illness including flu, COVID-19, and RSV.
How COVID-19 is changing primary voting—and the November election
The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted the 2020 election calendar, prompting states to shift their presidential primaries and other votes.These changes also include shifts away from the traditional visiting of polling places. Primary elections do not have the same rate of turnout as general elections, but this primary season may still provide insight into how Americans will vote in November’s election.Tuesday, April 28 should have hosted six primaries: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Instead, the only state that voted was Ohio. After cancelling its March 17 in-person primary, Ohio conducted its election almost entirely by mail. Gov. Mike DeWine initially proposed June 2 as a substitute, but the Ohio legislature moved the official primary date to April 28. Ballots postmarked by April 27 will be counted.New York state cancelled its presidential primary entirely. Over a dozen other states are weighing how to proceed with their primaries.How states shifted their primaries after the onset of COVID-19As of April 27, 15 states and territories have either delayed their primaries or switched to a vote-by-mail system with extended deadlines.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic change America, according to new Census data?
The American Community Survey (ACS), administered by the US Census Bureau, is the most comprehensive annual survey about the country’s population and housing information. It is used to distribute $675 billion every year, from allocating school lunch funds to planning emergency service coverage.Due to low response rates, the 2020 ACS data was withheld. As a result, the 2021 data release is the first version of the survey showing American economic, household, and social characteristics since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The data confirms big shifts in American society: commuting changed drastically, the housing market continued to tighten, and older Americans were hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic.How has the increase in people working from home changed commuting patterns?Between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of workers working from home more than tripled from 5.7% to 17.9%. This included workers who went into an office for less than half of their working week. The percentage of workers using public transportation to commute was halved, dropping from 5% to 2.5% over the same time period. Driving alone continued to be the most common method of transportation to work.
Six charts about COVID-19 vaccines: 24% of Americans 12 to 17 have started their vaccinations
1. 168.5 million Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccineAs of June 1, 2021, fifty-one percent of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Forty-one percent of the population, or 135.9 million people, is fully vaccinated.The vaccination rate has slowed since peaking in April. In the week ending on June 1, there were an average of 587,000 new vaccine recipients every day, down 71% from the 2 million a day mid-April. At the current vaccination rate, 70% of the population will have at least one dose by mid-September.
What are the leading causes of death in the US?
In 2022, heart disease, cancer, and accidents were the leading causes of death. Out of the nearly 3.3 million deaths in 2022, over 1.5 million, or 47%, were due to one of these three causes. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most common causes were COVID-19, cerebrovascular diseases, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.
The state of healthcare at the end of 2020
Even before the coronavirus pandemic surged across the country, government data revealed that healthcare was getting costlier, and not always with improved results.
The $2 trillion CARES Act, a response to COVID-19, is equivalent to 45% of all 2019 federal spending
Congress passed several major pieces of legislation responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the past few weeks. What’s the difference between these bills, currently being discussed in phases, and what’s the best way to measure the size of the CARES Act in the context of previous government spending?Phases I & II: First stages of the coronavirus responsePhase One – Health agencies and initial small business loansThis first significant piece of legislation passed on March 6, 2020. H.R. 6074, or the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, provides $8.3 billion in funding for vaccine development, loans for affected small businesses, evacuations and emergency activities at State Department facilities, and other humanitarian assistance.Phase Two – Paid sick leave, unemployment benefits, and food assistancePhase Two refers to H.R. 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which passed on March 17, 2020. The law provides roughly $100 billion in tax credits supporting emergency paid leave benefits. It also expands unemployment benefits and requires employers to give approximately two weeks of paid sick leave. The bill also increases access to food and nutrition support for both children and adults by waiving specific program requirements.Phase III: The CARES ActOn March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law, amounting to over $2 trillion in aid. That’s roughly $6,000 per American or 45% of all federal government expenditures in 2019.
Eight ways the pandemic affected American life in data
During the pandemic, the number of jobs available grew, the number of people getting educated fell, and spending on things such as recreation and hotel stays plummeted. Here are eight charts showing some of the ways the pandemic reverberated in different realms of American life.