New study tallies excess physician deaths in US during early pandemic

NEW YORK -- A total of 4,511 US physicians died during the early phase of COVID-19 -- 622 more deaths than would have occurred had the pandemic not happened, according to a research letter published in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) Internal Medicine.

Excess physician deaths peaked at 70 in December 2020 among all active physicians, followed by a rapid drop in 2021 when safe and effective vaccines became available, said a report published on the American Medical Association (AMA) website this week, citing the study "Excess Mortality Among Physicians During The COVID-19 Pandemic."

No excess deaths among physicians occurred after April 2021, which coincided with the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, meaning that nearly 50 US doctors more than expected died each month during this phase of the pandemic.

"Measuring excess mortality allows us a partial view of the collateral damage caused by the pandemic," Lindsey Carlasare, research and policy manager for the AMA and an author on the research letter, was quoted as saying.

For the study, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles used data from the AMA Masterfile and the corresponding Deceased Physician File to calculate excess deaths from March 2020 through December 2021 among US physicians 45-84 years old.