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COVID-19 is no longer one of the top 10 causes of death in the U.S.

Early data on deaths in 2024, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that COVID dropped from the list for the first time since the start of the pandemic. It became the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, and remained among the leading causes until now.

"COVID is still in the top 15 leading causes of death, so it hasn't disappeared," says Farida Ahmad, a health scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and lead author on the publication.

Since its peak in 2021 , when more than 463,000 people died from COVID, it has been moving steadily down the list. Last year, it was a factor in around 47,000 U.S. deaths.

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