Heart disease mortality during the early pandemic period in the United States

Importance The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has been associated with decreases in acute myocardial infarction diagnoses (AMI) and admissions in the United States. Whether this affected heart disease deaths is unknown. Objective To determine whether changes in heart disease deaths occurred during the early pandemic period in the US, we analyzed areas without large COVID-19 outbreaks. This isolated the effect of decreased healthcare-seeking behavior during the early outbreak. Design, Setting, and Participants We performed an observational study of heart disease-specific mortality using National Center for Health Statistics data (NCHS). Weekly provisional counts were disaggregated by jurisdiction of occurrence during 2019 and 2020 for all-cause deaths, COVID-19 deaths, and heart disease deaths. For the primary analysis, jurisdictions were included if; 1) There was no all-cause excess mortality during the early pandemic period (weeks 14–17, 2020); 2) The completeness of that data was estimated by NCHS to be >97% as of July 22, 2020, and; 3) Decreases in emergency department (ED) visits occurred during the study period. We compared heart disease death rates during the early pandemic period with corresponding weeks in 2019 and a pre-pandemic control period of 2020 as a sensitivity analysis. Incident rate and rate ratios were calculated. Exposure The US COVID-19 outbreak. Main Outcomes and Measures Incidence of heart disease deaths. Results Twelve states met the primary inclusion criteria, capturing 747,375,188 person-weeks for the early pandemic period and 740,987,984 person-weeks for the 2019 control period. The mean incidence rate (per 100,000 person-weeks) for heart disease in states without excess deaths during the early pandemic period was 3.95 (95% CI 3.83 to 4.06) versus 4.19 (95% CI 4.14 to 4.23) during the corresponding period in 2019. The incident rate ratio (2020/2019) was 0.91 (95% CI 0.87 to 0.97). No state recorded an increase from either the corresponding period in 2019 or the 2020 prepandemic control period. Two states recorded fewer heart disease deaths. Conclusions and Relevance This observational study found a decrease in heart disease deaths during the early US outbreak in regions without significant COVID-19 burdens, despite decreases in ED utilization. Long term follow-up data are needed.