Idaho deaths jumped by more than 1,700 last year as pandemic raged; flu deaths dropped
The coronavirus pandemic has brought at least 1,767 more deaths to Idaho than the state’s average, based on mortality data from the prior three years.
The data, released to the Idaho Statesman by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare last week, show that COVID-19 was the third-leading killer of Idahoans in 2020. For Hispanic Idahoans, COVID-19 was the top killer, making up 18% of all deaths among that ethnicity.
The data are preliminary, as death certificates — especially those from December — are still coming into the state’s vital-records system.
COVID-19 killed more Idahoans in 2020 than anything but heart disease and cancer, according to the data. The death toll was placed at 1,207. That doesn’t include all COVID-19-related deaths — that total was at least 1,511, according to IDHW’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The state also had an increase in fatalities from three health conditions that can make COVID-19 more deadly: Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and hypertension.
Influenza, meanwhile, killed about 27% fewer people in 2020 than it did in the three years prior, on average. The total for 2020 was 176.
“There would have been 186 fewer deaths in December 2020 than the average number of deaths in December 2017-2019 if deaths due to COVID-19 were excluded from the December 2020 data,” according to Health and Welfare.
The numbers are echoed in federal data. Idaho had 1,145 to 2,195 more deaths than usual since last February, according to the most recent excess deaths figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimates each state’s “excess deaths” each week, based on death certificates and data analysis.
The CDC’s estimates for the past year say that anywhere from 76 to 755 excess deaths weren’t attributed to COVID-19, but the rest were from the coronavirus disease itself.
