As deadly infectious diseases go, COVID-19 has overperformed going from zero infections in Ohio on March 1 to the state’s third-leading cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer, by Christmas.
A new analysis by the nonprofit Health Policy Institute of Ohio also found that, charted weekly, COVID-19 deaths in December have surpassed the weekly number of cancer deaths last December. For the week ended Dec. 5, COVID-19 deaths nearly exceeded heart-disease deaths for that same week in 2019.
The study compared the number of Ohio deaths from COVID-19 to the state’s leading disease killers in 2019: heart disease, all cancers and accidental deaths, which includes drug overdoses. As of Dec. 20, COVID-19 ranked No. 4 on the institute’s report, with 8,047 deaths.
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The pace of fatalities, though, has accelerated in the past six weeks and will push COVID-19 to the third-leading killer by Friday.
More than four times as many Ohioans died with COVID-19 than the 1,931 who died with flu or pneumonia in 2019.
“As Ohioans consider holiday plans, we will all need to keep celebrations small, wear masks, maintain physical distancing and practice good hygiene,” said institute president Amy Rohling McGee. “The recent rollout of vaccines is reason for optimism, but Ohioans need to remain vigilant until infection rates begin to fall.”
Heart disease killed 29,159 Ohioans deaths last year. All cancers killed 25,166 Ohioans, and 8,291 died from unintentional injury including overdose deaths, motor vehicle crashes and other accidents.
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