The number of Americans who died of alcohol-associated causes throughout the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased dramatically, according to a recent study. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on March 18, revealed that 99,017 U.S. citizens died of alcohol-related causes in 2020—a 25.5 percent increase from the 78,927 deaths documented in 2019. Researchers noted that the most significant increase in deaths was among the 35 to 44 age group, amounting to nearly 40 percent of all deaths. The second age group that suffered most from lethal alcohol use were Americans aged 25 to 34, with males and females having a similar mortality rate. The study analyzed data from the same year when there was a reported 54 percent increase in national sales of alcohol in March 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. Online alcohol sales for the week ending March …