With the novel coronavirus sweeping across the country and the widespread panic it has caused I’m sure this is not a title you were expecting to see. While deaths due to COVID-19 continue to climb we’re going to take a look at the CDC’s numbers for overall deaths in the US to see what affect this has really had. This article’s intention is not meant to take away from the danger that is COVID-19 but to bring to light the affects the the behavioral changes we’ve made due to the novel coronavirus have had on the overall death rate in the US.

We’re going to take a look at the week by week numbers provided by the CDC for deaths in the USA over the last 5 years. We only have data through week 10 of 2020 or the week of March 7. You’ll notice in figure one a steep downward trajectory for overall deaths for all ages in figure 1

Changing Americans behaviour and caution of their surrounding has started to cause a sever decrease in overall deaths in 2020 compared to 2015-2019. We notice this is even more prevalent in younger ages. Figure 2 shows us that when we isolate for age and look at ages 0-17 the decrease is even steeper. Remember these numbers are as of March 7th which is before most schools started shutting down

While COVID-19 is a scary and deadly pandemic, it is evident that is has caused a change in American behaviour that had so far lead to a decrease in death rate across the country. It has also raised awareness and preparedness for any future pandemics to come.