It is likely that approximately 330,000 Americans, at a minimum, prematurely died in 2020, primarily due to the effects of COVID-19. This rough estimate is an extrapolation derived from California Department of Health and Human Services’ 2020-2021 Provisional Deaths by Month Statewide as of 6-16-2021 (source: https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/7a456555-87b9-4830-817c-72d72e628745/resource/3192c0ff-e380-4314-8a88-16a3bdace8b7/download/2021-06_deaths_provisional_state_month_sup.csv ).

The state’s aggregate provisional deaths by month for 2020 and 2021 as well as the state’s total deaths by year for the three prior years were overlaid on a polar coordinate grid by month to approximate a Nightingale rose chart. The approximate area between the red outlined ‘drop’ and the ‘rough circles’ translates into about 40,000 excess deaths in California for 2020 compared to each of the prior three years. Based on California’s proportion of the national population, this returns 330,000 as a rough estimate for total U.S. ‘excess deaths’ for 2020. (See https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm for a discussion of this concept.)

The dotted line in the upper right quadrant of the ‘target’ shows the steep decline in overall deaths in California from January to April 2021 (which was probably due to the introduction of COVID-19 vaccinations).