CDC data shows there were 344,851 total deaths in 2020 due to COVID, and over 3 million deaths altogether.
According to the report, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
The 2020 increase is the largest since 1918 — when hundreds of thousands of people died of a flu during World War I, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will announce these results in an upcoming issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the report said on Wednesday.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 29,152,716, including 529,203 fatalities, according to Baltimore, Maryland's Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from national and local authorities, the media and other sources.
