Next weekend will mark four years since New Hampshire reported its first death from what was then known as the novel coronavirus. Although COVID-19 hasn’t claimed many lives these days, time has shown that it is leading us to the next stage, an unfortunate new normal in terms of mortality. .

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is clear. In 2018 and 2019, the two years before the coronavirus outbreak, New Hampshire averaged just under 12,800 deaths per year. However, since 2020, there have been an average of more than 14,100 deaths per year. This is an increase of about 10%, which is a significant increase by demographic standards.

When COVID-19 struck, everyone expected the death toll to rise, but no one expected the death toll to remain this high. And we cannot blame the SARS-CoV2 virus itself.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services estimates that only one or two people a week are dying from the coronavirus these days, and the New Hampshire Hospital Association estimates that the number of people hospitalized with the virus has increased since early January. It has been announced that the number of cases has decreased from 174 people at its peak to less than that. than 30.

Deaths are due to all causes: heart disease (the state’s No. 1 killer) and other internal diseases, respiratory diseases such as influenza and the coronavirus, suicides and homicides, work accidents, motor vehicle accidents, and drugs. In one of America’s oldest states, there are all kinds of illnesses, age-related illnesses, and more.

Similar patterns are being seen across the country and in other countries, as if the pandemic has destabilized society and removed guardrails around daily life that we barely knew existed. They drive less safely, skip vaccinations, get angry more easily, eat worse because of rising prices, are more likely to be homeless, gather less frequently with friends and neighbors, and are less likely to be cared for by family members. Less help. A strained and expensive healthcare system – There are many possible causes and no easy solutions.

Aging populations are making us more vulnerable, says UNH professor Ken Johnson, who has become a go-to source for information on demographic change. The largest demographic of New Hampshire’s population is between the ages of 55 and 65, and people are heading into a year when they become more vulnerable to all of life’s ups and downs. Our mortality rates were creeping higher before the pandemic, but we haven’t seen a similar change since then.

Beyond the tragic loss of life, New Hampshire, like its slower-growing neighbors, cannot afford to lose any more people.

The number of births in New Hampshire has been slowly declining in recent years. Mr Johnson said Census data showed the “natural change” in population, which counts deaths and births, had been negative since 2015 and had worsened slightly since Covid-19. It pointed out. In most years, there are 2,000 more deaths than births.

Without people moving to New Hampshire, mostly from other states and some from abroad, the state’s population would have declined by about 20,000 people over the past decade. . At Loudoun, Weir and I packed up and left.

Fortunately, people are moving here. The Census Bureau estimates the state’s population reached 1,402,054 people on July 1, an increase of 1.8% since April 1, 2020, just after the first COVID-19 death. That’s modest growth by Sunbelt standards, but more than most of the Northeast. And maybe it’s a good thing that the growth rate isn’t as high as we face a housing shortage.

The question no one can answer is what the future holds. Perhaps we will move away from the anger and despair fueled by the pandemic. Perhaps it will attract more young people to balance out the age-related mortality rates of baby boomers and the oldest millennials. Perhaps we will consider more seriously social safety nets and other ways to alleviate the hardships of modern life.

Let’s hope so anyway.