Death counts remain high in some states even as COVID fatalities wane

Several months after President Joe Biden ended the national emergency for COVID-19, preliminary health data indicates the historic degree to which the pandemic increased death rates nationwide — not just because of the virus itself, but also through the pandemic’s reverberating effects on society. Deaths from vehicle crashes, homicides, suicides and overdoses spiked in many states during the national health emergency that began in January 2020. Deaths of despair, which include people who died by suicide or from an accidental overdose, reached their highest numbers during the first year of the ...