The death rate in the United States returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2024 as COVID-19 fell out of the top 10 leading causes of death, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 quickly rose to the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in the first two years of the pandemic, pushing the age-adjusted death rate up to a peak of about 880 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2021. The overall U.S. death rate has fallen about 18% since then, and last year's 4% drop brought the U.S. death rate down to the lowest it's been since 2019. Advertisement

There were 722 deaths for every 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2024 — nearly 3.1 million deaths overall — according to the provisional, age-adjusted data from the CDC. Final mortali

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