COVID-19: What the US Data Actually Shows
A respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and spread mainly through the air; most cases are mild, but it can cause severe pneumonia, especially in older adults and people with underlying conditions.
Common in the US Circulates year-round across the US and is one of the country's leading causes of respiratory hospitalization and death.
The published figures
Every number below is reproduced from a primary source and carries that source beside it. Where a figure is absent it is shown as unavailable rather than estimated — the reasoning for each gap is set out further down this page.
| Metric | United States | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Exposure / Cases | 10,400,000–16,700,000 | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source | 2026-02-19 |
| Severe Outcome Rate | Data not available | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source | 2026-02-19 |
| Hospitalization Rate | Data not available | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source | 2026-02-19 |
| Case Fatality Rate | 0.2–0.51% | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source | 2026-02-19 |
| Annual Deaths | 34,000–53,000 | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source | 2026-02-19 |
Illness/hospitalization/death figures are Oct 1, 2024–Jul 5, 2025 modeled range estimates; COVID-19 is no longer nationally notifiable, so no clean confirmed-case count exists. cases_per_100k is left UNAVAILABLE. case_fatality_rate_pct is now shown as a BOUNDING RANGE (0.2-0.5%) rather than a point: the low bound is the smallest deaths / largest illnesses and the high bound the reverse, so it honestly spans the uncertainty in the two published ranges instead of inventing a single pairing. The 'How a figure changes over time' trend for COVID shows two honestly-separate NCHS death-certificate series (they must not be merged): deaths involving COVID-19 (underlying or contributing) — 377,883 (2020), 460,513 (2021), 244,986 (2022), 76,446 (2023) — and the narrower underlying-cause-only count — 345,323 (2020), 415,399 (2021), 186,702 (2022), 49,928 (2023). Both use a different method than the current-season modeled figure shown as the live value, so they are not directly comparable to it.
What this data cannot tell you
2 of the five funnel metrics have no publishable US figure for COVID-19. That is a deliberate result, not an oversight. Where no primary source publishes a comparable figure, this site leaves the cell empty rather than filling it with an estimate, a number borrowed from a different population, or a single-study result presented as a general rate.
- Severe Outcome Rate — no comparable figure published by the record's primary source as of 2026-02-19.
- Hospitalization Rate — no comparable figure published by the record's primary source as of 2026-02-19.
This matters when comparing viruses. A blank cell is not a low number: it means the measurement does not exist, and treating it as zero would make COVID-19 look safer than the evidence supports. The comparison table on the Virus Risk Perspective page applies the same rule — unavailable figures are excluded from ranking rather than sorted to the bottom.
How COVID-19 compares
Ranked only against viruses in this collection that publish the same metric. Viruses without a published figure are excluded from each comparison rather than counted as zero, so the denominator differs from metric to metric.
Read the case comparison carefully. Records in this collection do not all measure exposure the same way. Some report confirmed cases counted by a surveillance system (measles, West Nile), others a modelled estimate of total annual illness including cases that are never reported (norovirus, seasonal influenza). A modelled burden figure will always dwarf a confirmed-case count, so a gap on this metric can reflect how a disease is counted as much as how often it occurs. The per-figure sources above state which basis each number uses.
Annual Exposure / Cases
At 10,400,000–16,700,000, 2 of the 10 other viruses reporting this metric are higher and 8 are lower. Higher: Seasonal influenza, Norovirus. Lower: Respiratory syncytial virus, Rabies, Mpox.
Case Fatality Rate
At 0.2–0.51%, 5 of the 9 other viruses reporting this metric are higher and 4 are lower. Higher: Rabies, Hantavirus, Powassan virus. Lower: Dengue, Measles, Seasonal influenza.
Annual Deaths
At 34,000–53,000, 1 of the 9 other viruses reporting this metric are higher and 8 are lower. Higher: Seasonal influenza. Lower: Respiratory syncytial virus, Norovirus, West Nile virus.
How the figures have moved
Each observation below is a figure as it stood on a given date, with the source that published it. Points are not interpolated: where an agency published a figure once, one point is shown rather than a line drawn through invented values.
Annual Exposure / Cases
| As of | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-02-19 | 10,400,000–16,700,000 | CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 |
Annual Deaths
| As of | Value | Series | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-12-31 | 377,883 | Involving COVID-19 (underlying or contributing) | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2020 |
| 2020-12-31 | 345,323 | COVID-19 underlying cause only | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2020 |
| 2021-12-31 | 460,513 | Involving COVID-19 (underlying or contributing) | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2021 |
| 2021-12-31 | 415,399 | COVID-19 underlying cause only | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2021 |
| 2022-12-31 | 244,986 | Involving COVID-19 (underlying or contributing) | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2022 |
| 2022-12-31 | 186,702 | COVID-19 underlying cause only | CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2022 |
| 2023-12-31 | 76,446 | Involving COVID-19 (underlying or contributing) | CDC MMWR — Mortality in the United States, Provisional Data, 2023 |
| 2023-12-31 | 49,928 | COVID-19 underlying cause only | CDC MMWR — Mortality in the United States, Provisional Data, 2023 |
Global picture
WHO's dashboard counts 7,116,554 deaths and 779,366,737 cases reported to WHO cumulatively through 30 August 2026. Those are cumulative totals, and the annual slices are not comparable to the US single-season figures: only 26,889 deaths were reported to WHO for calendar year 2025, from 46 of 240 reporting countries and areas, because global COVID-19 surveillance has wound down — the annual global cells are therefore left UNAVAILABLE rather than charted as a misleading side-by-side. For scale, WHO estimates about 14.9 million excess deaths were associated with the pandemic worldwide in 2020–2021 (range 13.3–16.6 million; WHO news release, 5 May 2022), far more than the deaths officially reported over that period.
Source: WHO — COVID-19 dashboard: deaths reported to WHO (data through 30 August 2026) · Data as of 2026-08-30 · Surveillance confidence: low
Sources
- CDC MMWR — Respiratory Virus Activity, United States, July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 primary source · retrieved 2026-02-19
- WHO — COVID-19 dashboard: deaths reported to WHO (data through 30 August 2026) primary source · retrieved 2026-08-30
- CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2020 primary source · retrieved 2020-12-31
- CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2021 primary source · retrieved 2021-12-31
- CDC MMWR — Provisional Mortality Data, United States, 2022 primary source · retrieved 2022-12-31
- CDC MMWR — Mortality in the United States, Provisional Data, 2023 primary source · retrieved 2023-12-31
Sourcing tiers, and the rule that a derived figure inherits its weakest input's tier, are set out on the Our Sources page. The process behind every figure is described in How We Answer Questions.