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Chart: Select Causes of Death: Reported Annual Data Data: NCHS, Census. Accidents figure for 2022 is provisional (not final). [ beadsland on Ko-fi ] Dashed lines for annual data for years 2015 through 2021 for causes liver disease & self-harm; through 2022 for accidents (unintentional injuries). Dotted lines indicate trendlines for Jan 2020 forward, for each cause category. Legend: * Accidents (unintentional injuries) (+45K more annual deaths vs. 2019) * Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (+12.2K) * Intentional self-harm (suicide) (+0.7K) * Projected U.S. population Caption: Accidents (unintentional injuries) have returned to their pre-pandemic standing as third leading cause of death in the United States. While deaths for which covid-19 was the attributed underlying cause of death were, indeed, down from prior two calendar years, 2022 saw many more deadly accidents than would have been predicted based on 2015-2019 trendline. Were it not for this sustained spike in accidental deaths, covid would have retained third place. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis saw a near identical jump in relative mortality over the first two years of the pandemic. As of yet, only provisional figures for 2022’s top four causes of death are available. (Final “statistics”—if not “data”—for all causes might be available end of this year.) Despite discourse about suicide rates in recent years, intentional self-harm deaths were still below trendline as of 2021’s final mortality figures.