One interesting contributor to excess deaths is a spike in deaths attributed to Alzheimer's and other dementias - there were about 42,000 more of these deaths i

One interesting contributor to excess deaths is a spike in deaths attributed to Alzheimer's and other dementias - there were about 42,000 more of these deaths in the U.S. in 2020 than would be expected from the previous five-year average [1,2]. These deaths are primarily attributed to the negative effects of lockdowns on dementia patients - loss of access to family and caregivers as well as social isolation generally have a substantially more negative impact on this subset of individuals than on the general population. Using a total 2020 U.S. excess death count of ~415,000 [3], this means that just above one in ten excess deaths can be attributed to the negative effects of lockdown rather than to COVID itself. On the other hand, the alternative would likely have been letting COVID ravage senior care facilities, which could have been much worse. [1] https://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-2021/alzheimers-dementia-covid-deaths.html https://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-2021/alzheimer... [2] https://www.alz.org/media/Documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf https://www.alz.org/media/Documents/alzheimers-facts-and-fig... [3] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101386118 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101386118