Last year’s dramatic spike in excess deaths—mortality not attributed to COVID-19—has appeared to wane. Between October and January, the number of such deaths decreased by more than half, according to death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In January, fewer than 7,500 Americans died in excess of the average for the same month in 2019 and 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic, adjusted for the country’s population change. About 5,000 of those deaths were attributed to COVID-19, leaving fewer than 2,500 to other causes. By contrast, in September, there were over 14,000 such excess deaths, with fewer than 9,000 attributed to COVID. The non-COVID excess deaths reached their peak between May and October last year, when more than 5,000 such deaths occurred each month. In the 12 months ending October 2021, there was an excess death spike of more than 40 percent, compared with the same period in …