Who died and why: COVID-19, class and mass death in the United States

According to the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (2026), there were approximately 240 million COVID-19 infections in the United States in 2025 alone. Confirmed COVID-19 Deaths, United States. This four-row table covers the major SARS-CoV-2 variant eras from January 2020 through mid-June 2024, detailing the variant name, date range, interval COVID-19 deaths, cumulative COVID-19 deaths, cumulative excess deaths, and the percentage of excess mortality. Collapse of life expectancyThe COVID-19 pandemic erased two decades of life expectancy gains in the United States. Figure 8: Age-Specific Death Rates and Relative Increase from 2019 baseline, United States.