ST. PAUL Minn. (AP) - Late in the night on Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving, the year 2020 became the deadliest in Minnesota’s history.
By year’s end, well over 51,000 people had died in the state, according to the state’s preliminary death records. The St. Paul Pioneer Press estimates that by the time the state finishes recording deaths, the year’s count will rise to around 52,230 - a 15 percent increase over 2019.
Fatal cases of COVID-19 were the major driver but not the only one. Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease for the state Department of Health, says other causes of death, including opioid overdoses, also have increased during the pandemic.
“That’s consistent with what has been seen nationally, as well,” Ehresmann said. “What that tells us is that people are likely not seeking care for conditions and avoiding health care for fear of COVID.”
The state Department of Health has made repeated calls to protect one’s self from the coronavirus by wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands. It also has encouraged Minnesotans not to skip preventative and maintenance medical care. Roughly 40 percent of the national population has some type of pre-existing health condition.
“I do think there are elders who are living at home who are choosing to not go to health care,” Ehresmann said. “That plays a role, too.”
Many Minnesotans have disregarded the warnings and dismissed the seriousness of the deadly virus. The sheer number of deaths, though, is hard to ignore.
Between 2016 and 2019, the state’s yearly death count grew by an average of 752 people, a likely reflection of Minnesota’s growing and aging population. In 2020, the increase is expected to be about 6,840 deaths, the Pioneer Press analysis found.
The health department has reported separately that at least 5,323 Minnesotans died of COVID-19 last year.
According to the records so far:
Deaths among nursing home residents jumped 26 percent over 2019.
Homicides and accidental deaths both were up 15 percent.
Suicides, however, defied the trend, declining by around 13 percent.
The median age of death was unchanged from last year, at 80 years old.
Tallies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and research from both the U.S. and the United Kingdom have found larger than expected increases in deaths from diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and dementia.
People of color have been disproportionately impacted by both COVID-19 and other mortality related to the pandemic. According to Minnesota death records, year-over-year deaths increased in 2020 by:
42 percent among Hispanics.
29 percent among Asians.
23 percent among both African-Americans and American Indians.
13 percent among whites.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as the health department posted daily updates on the anonymous number of Minnesotans who have died of COVID-19, skeptics have questioned whether the virus really is causing more deaths. It’s been suggested that because most of those who’ve died were old, lived in long-term care and often had pre-existing medical conditions that they were destined to die soon anyway.
That outrages Kristine Sundberg, of Elder Voice Family Advocates, who says it’s a devaluing of human life. Her organization advocates for better care and living conditions for seniors in long-term care facilities.
“That’s ageism at its worst,” Sundberg said. “Never should we ever have a population that is dispensable.”
Sundberg says she’s heard terrifying stories from across the state of healthy, vibrant seniors who succumbed to COVID-19.
Nearly 94 percent of the state’s coronavirus deaths have been people over the age of 60 and about 64 percent were residents of long-term care.
One of the dead was Constance Young, who died in August at the age of 83 after battling vascular dementia. Young was diagnosed with the coronavirus eight days before she died and was relegated to a COVID-19 ward at her nursing home.
“She was just put in a room and given morphine to wait the days out,” her daughter Bonnie Wenker said.
Wenker says that while her mom had been receiving hospice treatment at Sterling Park, in St. Cloud, for two years, her health was stable. Despite her diagnoses, Young’s death is currently not counted among the state’s coronavirus deaths because it is not listed on her death certificate.
Wenker doesn’t think that is correct. “I don’t think, if Mom hadn’t gotten COVID, she would be gone yet,” she said.
Researchers in the United Kingdom, who accounted for long-term health conditions in their study, estimated that fatal cases of the coronavirus take 13 years of life from the average male victim and 11 years from the average female.
The omission of Wenker’s mom from the state’s current count of COVID-19 deaths leads Sundberg and others to believe the true impact of COVID-19 is likely being undercounted, especially among seniors.
“I know of several cases of people trying to address incorrect causes of death,” Sundberg said. “It certainly isn’t an overcount.”
But some people claim just that.
Scott Jensen, a medical doctor and former Republican lawmaker, has alleged the state has inflated the number of COVID-19 deaths by including people infected with the virus who died of other causes.
Ehresmann says that simply is not true.
“If I test positive for COVID today and then I go out and get hit by a bus, clearly that’s not related to COVID and that’s not a COVID (death),” Ehresmann said.
The striking increase in the number who died in Minnesota last year, from all causes, leaves little doubt that the coronavirus is largely to blame. And the timeline for deaths in the state bolsters that case.
Between late April and early June, when the state was reporting its first major wave of COVID-19 deaths, the year-over-year increase in deaths from all causes was around 20 percent. Over a four-week stretch in November and December, the state saw around 50 percent more deaths compared with the same weeks in 2019.
“It is problematic that the claim is being made,” Ehresmann added. “We are following the national standard. We have a whole team reviewing death certificates.”
The surge in mortality in the state has kept those who deal with the dead extraordinarily busy.
Yet, so far, the state has not had to use a former Brixx produce warehouse it acquired at the corner of Arlington Avenue and L’Orient Street in St. Paul to store bodies. The state Department of Administration paid $5.4 million for the 71,000-square-foot facility built in 1997 that sits on about 5 acres of land in the Arlington Business park.
But funeral directors, especially those in rural parts of the state where there are only one or two funeral homes, have struggled to keep up with putting the dead to rest.
“I just know they are obviously very busy,” said Darlyne Erickson, executive director of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association. “There’s just no rhyme or reason to death. It happens and they deal with it.”
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