The Coronavirus is still infecting a large number of people in the US. However, there is a more significant threat that the US is facing today. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease is still deadlier than the coronavirus.
On the latest report of CNN, CDC clarified that although the pandemic caused by COVID-19 has now taken thousands of lives across the United States, it is still not the leading cause of death in the nation.
"There are no data to support that theory," said Jeff Lancashire, spokesperson for the National Center for Health Statistics, in an email he sent to CNN on Friday, April 10.
It was clarified that these claims were formulated by experts through a comparison of the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus with the estimated number of deaths on a daily average caused by other diseases.
According to CNN, false reports stating that the Coronavirus has become the leading cause of death in the United States have been circulating since the country now has the most number of coronavirus cases in the world, surpassing China and Italy.
Heart disease is still deadlier than the Coronavirus
According to a previous report by CNN, more than 431,000 people in the US have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 14,700 have now died.
The recent data provided by CNN stated that 1,858 deaths were recorded on Tuesday, April 7, and more than 1,922 died on Wednesday. New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, told the public on Wednesday, April 8, that there were 779 coronavirus-related deaths reported across the United States, which is the highest number of deaths in just one day.
The researchers stated that these numbers will rise as the US reaches its highest peak. According to the modeling of the data provided by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington Seattle, the US will reach its highest number of infected cases and deaths on Sunday, April 12.
While this is the case, the CDC reiterated that heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the United States. According to the report of Healthline, 1 in every 4 deaths in the US is caused by heart disease resulting in about 610,000 deaths each year.
Heart disease is also the leading cause of death in several populations including Hispanics, African-Americans, and Caucasians. It was stated in the report that almost half of Americans have a high risk of acquiring heart disease.
Heart disease covers a wide range of cardiovascular complications. An individual who has heart disease may experience a slow pulse, lightheadedness, a fluttering or racing heartbeat, chest pains, and dizziness.
"We have limited data on 2020 deaths by cause, and no final official numbers yet for 2019, but we do know by looking at the final death totals in 2018 for the two leading causes of death in the U.S., Heart Disease and Cancer, there is no way that at this point COVID-19 comes anywhere close to those totals," said Lancashire on CNN.
He also pointed out that 234,000 people in the United States have died because of heart disease between January and April in 2018, while nearly 199,000 death cases were caused by cancer.
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