The new faces of Covid deaths

_{By Denise Chow, Joe Murphy, Jiachuan Wu and Francisco Dans
Nov. 2, 2021}

Younger, Southern, rural and white.

Those are increasingly the kinds of people who are dying of Covid-19, as the demographics of those hit hardest by the coronavirus have shifted since the pandemic first hit the United States. The country’s most recent, devastating Covid wave, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, showed the strength of the virus even in the face of mounting vaccinations, with more than 100,000 deaths reported in the past three months.

Many of those deaths were reported in places — and in populations — that had been largely spared the worst effects of the disease until now.

An NBC News analysis of what changed from the first 100,000 Covid deaths in the U.S. to the most recent 100,000 deaths shows key geographic and demographic shifts in the evolution of the pandemic. Covid hot spots moved from densely populated cities concentrated in the Northeast and on the West Coast to Southern states and more rural regions. The disease also shifted from disproportionately affecting older adults and people with underlying conditions into a more indiscriminate killer among those who were unvaccinated.

They are deaths that were largely preventable.

“This has become a disease of the unimmunized,” said Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and associate director for health sciences at the school’s Global Health Institute.

The delta variant tore through the South, in particular, where vaccination rates have lagged, especially in more rural regions. Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and West Virginia were among the states that experienced the biggest spikes in Covid death rates during the most recent wave.

From the first 100,000 deaths to the latest, Florida saw the largest rise in its share of population-adjusted Covid deaths, increasing by nearly 4 percentage points. NBC News’ analysis looked at each state’s Covid death rate adjusted for population and focused on how each state’s share of the country’s overall deaths changed over time. Adjusted for population, Florida’s rate of recent Covid deaths grew sixfold. Among the states with the largest increase in their share of population-adjusted deaths during the most recent surge, Southern states made up eight of the top 10.

How the pandemic spread

NBC News tracked reported Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. Visualized here are the share of a state’s population-adjusted Covid deaths and how that share changed from the first 100,000 deaths to the latest 100,000 deaths.

New York had the largest share of Covid deaths in the country’s first 100,000 fatalities. In the most recent 100,000, Covid deaths were largely concentrated in the South.
Cities bore the brunt of the first wave, but the latest 100,000 Covid deaths were more distributed and hot spots shifted to more rural regions.
Among the first 100,000 deaths, people ages 75 and older made up 83 percent of the population-adjusted fatality rate. The share of middle-aged and older adults, especially those 55 to 74 years old, increased in the most recent Covid deaths.
White people made up a much greater share of the most recent deaths compared to the first 100,000 deaths.
Unvaccinated individuals represented the overwhelming majority in the most recent deaths. Vaccines were not yet available when the U.S. recorded its first 100,000 Covid deaths.