Publisher Health

The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal.

Excess deaths, as this number is known, has been an important measure of Covid’s true toll because it does not depend on the murky attribution of deaths to a specific cause. Even if Covid is being underdiagnosed, the excess-deaths statistic can capture its effects. The statistic also captures Covid’s indirect effects, like the surge of vehicle crashes, gun deaths and deaths from missed medical treatments during the pandemic.

During Covid’s worst phases, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a shocking increase. For long stretches of the past three years, the excess was above 10 percent. But during the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero, according to three different measures.

The Human Mortality Database estimates that slightly fewer Americans than normal have died since March, while The Economist magazine and the C.D.C. both put the excess-death number below 1 percent. Here is the C.D.C. data:

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The story is similar in many other countries, if not quite so positive:

The power of immunity

The progress stems mostly from three factors:

• First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.

• Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)

• Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.

“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most — immunocompromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immunocompromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immunocompromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immunocompromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

With vs. from

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Even so, some Americans are still dying from Covid. “I don’t know anybody who thinks we’re going to eradicate Covid,” Jha said.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)

Yet the number of Covid deaths has now dropped low enough that they are difficult to notice in the overall death data. They can be swamped by fluctuations in other causes of death, such as the flu or vehicle crashes.

Almost a year ago, President Biden angered some public health experts when he declared, “The pandemic is over.” He may have been premature to make that declaration. But the excess-deaths milestone suggests that it’s true now: The pandemic is finally over.

Related: Researchers are working to ensure developing countries don’t have to rely on wealthy nations for vaccines in a future pandemic, The Washington Post reports.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

• The Kremlin blamed Ukraine for an attack on a vital bridge in occupied Crimea. The Russian military uses it to support its troops in southern Ukraine.

• Russia said it had pulled out of an agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain by sea. The deal was seen as key to keeping global food prices stable.

Politics

• Donald Trump and his allies plan to expand the presidency’s power if he wins in 2024, bringing more government agencies under his control.

• Trump, Biden and Tim Scott: See which presidential candidates have the most campaign money.

• Conservatives gathered at the Turning Point Action Conference in Florida this weekend. A pro-Trump crowd booed his opponents.

Extreme Weather

• Torrential rains and flash flooding killed five people in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

• The South and West are facing another week of triple-digit temperatures.

• Firefighters in Phoenix are rescuing homeless people who collapse in their tents and workers who faint in the sun.

Economy

• China’s economy slowed this spring, suggesting a more sluggish post-pandemic recovery than many analysts anticipated.

• Ahead of a Group of 20 gathering, Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, said rich countries must provide faster debt relief to developing countries.

• Europeans are becoming poorer, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Other Big Stories

• Jane Birkin, the British-French singer and actress who inspired the Birkin handbags by Hermès, died at 76. See her best looks.

• Despite years of political promises, the relationship between France’s minority populations and its police force has only gotten worse.

• The Powerball lottery will draw a $900 million jackpot tonight.

Opinions

To lower the maternal mortality rate, the U.S. needs to reduce racial biases in care, Veronica Gillispie-Bell writes.

Here are columns by David French on “The Bear” and Ezra Klein on supply-side liberalism.

MORNING READS

The Kennedy Files: Some of the assassination papers are redacted. Historians and conspiracy theorists have questions.

Civil War-era gold: More than 700 coins were found buried on a Kentucky farm.

Metropolitan Diary: Newlyweds, separated by a crowd.

Lives Lived: Sally Kempton was a rising star in New York journalism. Then, she pivoted to a life of Eastern asceticism and spiritual practice. She died at 80.

SPORTS NEWS

Wimbledon: Carlos Alcaraz upset Novak Djokovic to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title in a thrilling comeback.

Lionel Messi: The soccer star’s contract with Inter Miami is official, and he was presented to fans at a ceremony in his new home stadium.

Golf momentum: Rory McIlroy will enter the British Open this week with gusto after winning the Scottish Open yesterday.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Hollywood on strike: The actors’ strike may reshape Oscars season. The actors’ guild is prohibiting members from promoting any film while the strike is on — including interviews and red-carpet appearances at film festivals in Venice and Toronto that can be crucial to Oscars buzz. Seven of the past 10 best-picture winners debuted at a fall festival, where ovations and acclaim helped propel them to nominations.

For more

• Why should you care about the strikes in Hollywood? Because background actors are more like us than the megastars, James Poniewozik writes.

• Studio executives said the strikes would hurt the 2024 release calendar if they didn’t end by around Labor Day.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Make butter chicken at home.

Start birding. It doesn’t require any gear, but some binoculars help.

Snorkel with the best masks and flippers.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Here are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangrams were rotunda and turnaround.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

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