Covid was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. last year, with only heart disease and cancer killing more

A medic from Empress EMS loads a suspected COVID-19 patient into an ambulance on April 07, 2020 in Yonkers, New York.

According to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in the US last year.

In the first year of the Pandemic, Covid killed more than 384,000 people, but in the second year it killed more than 415,000 people.

The CDC data is based on death records from January to December of 2021.

More men died from Covid than women, and people 85 and older had a higher death rate from the disease. The death rate for American Indians was higher when adjusted for age and population. The death rates from Covid were higher for Hispanics, Black people and Pacific Islanders. Asians and multiracial individuals had the lowest death rates.

Heart disease and cancer killed more people than Covid in 2021, taking the lives of about 693,000 and 604,000 people, respectively. More than 219,000 people died from accidental injuries.

Many people did not get their shots after the U.S. began rolling them out. According to the CDC, the delta variant caused more severe illness than other Covid variants.

34% of the U.S. population was not fully vaccined and 23% of the population had not received a single dose. Children under the age of 5 years old are not currently eligible for vaccine.

According to data presented at a CDC advisory committee meeting, unvaccinated people ages 12 and older were 20 times more likely to die from Covid and three times more likely to test positive for the virus than people who had received three doses of the vaccine.

According to the CDC, more than 987,000 people have died from Covid in the U.S. Deaths from Covid have dropped 85% from the peak of the winter omicron wave, but more than 300 people are still dying every day from the virus.

According to the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a group of scientists at several top universities and medical institutions, 96,000 people could die of Covid from March of this year through March of 2023.

If current immunity in the population fades quickly and a Covid variant emerges that is able to escape immune protection from the vaccines, 211,000 people could die from the virus over the next year. The methods that the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub uses to make projections were developed in consultation with the CDC.