The Response to COVID-19 Resulted in a Lot of Teen Deaths

Not the pandemic. The response to the pandemic. From Meep at STUMP: Toddler and Teen Terror 2022 U.S. Mortality: Large Increases Over 2019

Now cause and effect are hard to attribute in a statistical analysis, but when the trends are in one direction for years (13-17 year-old mortality rates), and then a reversal occurs as if overnight, I for one feel confident in assigning blame to the "do something!" reaction so many people had to COVID.

From 1999 to 2014, you can see mortality improvement.

Reduction in motor vehicle accident deaths was a huge part of that improvement. Motor vehicle accident deaths improved even more for teens than for the younger ages - over 60% decrease from 1999 to 2019.

Things begin to change in 2015, with an increase in suicides, homicide, and a reversal of the gains made in motor vehicle fatalities.

For the years 2020, 2021, and 2022 the story changes dramatically.

But we’ve seen huge increases in homicides, drug overdoses, and motor vehicle accident deaths. That’s pretty horrible.

The only bright spot in these numbers is that there has been no increase in suicide among teens. You have to look at older populations to find an increase in suicide during these years, and it is marked.

Oh, and the pandemic? You can barely see the COVID, but you can see the large jump up in motor vehicle accident deaths and drug overdoses. Also, homicides.

Click thru for the analysis, the graphs and the data, and links to Meep's other population studies.

So would all of those people who were shouting about the need to "Do something!" be shouting so loudly if they knew the impact on teen mortality? Teens were hardly impacted by the pandemic. Some were of course, but MANY more died of other causes, like homicide and traffic accidents.