COVID-19 third leading cause of U.S. deaths in 2020 after heart disease, cancer

COVID-19 was the primary or contributing cause of 377,883 deaths in the United States last year, with a particularly high toll among the elderly, according to a government report released on Wednesday.

The COVID-19 mortality rate made it the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020 after heart disease and cancer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis found. The CDC said that the overall U.S. mortality rate increased for the first time since 2017, by nearly 16%, to 3,358,814 deaths. The jump was driven by COVID-19, which accounted for an increase of 11.3%.