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Population Health

Deaths From COVID-19

Educational Objective
To identify the key insights or developments described in this article

1 Credit CME

JAMA

Published Online: December 17, 2020

Editorial

Article Information and Disclosures

Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH^1,2;

Alan C. Geller, RN, MPH¹;

Tyler J. VanderWeele, PhD¹

Author Affiliations

¹Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
²Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

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In any year, keeping track of new health trends can be difficult. But this year, the dynamic nature of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made clarity almost impossible. Declines in mortality, after daily COVID-19–related deaths peaked last spring, initially fueled hope that the worst was over. But following a summer increase in deaths, trends have accelerated even faster. This fall, a million new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, which previously had increased monthly, began appearing weekly; as of December 13, cumulative infections totaled more than 16 million in the United States.¹ Meanwhile, the media regularly report a flood of statistics that can be difficult to contextualize.

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Article Information

Corresponding Author: Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Kresge 401, Boston, MA 02115 (hkoh@hsph.harvard.edu).

Published Online: December 17, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.25381

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Koh reported receiving grants 77667 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, UL1TR002541 from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Science, 5U48 DP006376-02 from the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Centers, 61075 from the Templeton Foundation, and 1085 from the JPB Foundation. Dr VanderWeele reported receiving grants 61075 and 61907 from the John Templeton Foundation and personal fees from Aetna Inc, and Flerish Inc. Mr Geller reported receiving compensation as a contributor to UptoDate. No other disclosures were reported.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein represent the authors’ personal views and do not reflect the beliefs of Harvard University. Any reference to a business, product, or service does not represent endorsement.

Additional Contributions: We thank Kirk Vanda, MBA, and Chelsea Heberlein, MPH, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for their assistance on this article, neither of whom were compensated for their contributions.

AMA CME Accreditation Information

Credit Designation Statement: The American Medical Association designates this Journal-based CME activity activity for a maximum of 1.00  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to:

1.00 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;;
1.00 Self-Assessment points in the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s (ABOHNS) Continuing Certification program;
1.00 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;
1.00 Lifelong Learning points in the American Board of Pathology’s (ABPath) Continuing Certification program; and
1.00 credit toward the CME of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program

It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting MOC credit.