The Covid-19 pandemic has been traumatic for New York City. But just how traumatic, by historical standards?

@foxjust turned to health records that date back to 1804 to find out https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

Every year, the city updates a remarkable mortality rate chart, labeled “The Conquest of Pestilence in New York City.”

Although the 2020 report isn’t ready, there’s enough data available to estimate how Covid-19 might rank among previous pestilences https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

OK, so it’s not cholera.

But Covid-19 is clearly the worst thing to hit New York City in a long, long time — and that’s assuming the city’s epidemic is more or less over https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

To find the mortality rate, @foxjust assumed that the city’s population declined from 2019-2020 at the same rate that it has.

Pandemic departures indicate that it's probably declined by more than that, so 9.9 deaths-per-thousand is likely an underestimate https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

There are multiple ways to place the projected 2020 death toll in context.

81,524 deaths would fall short of the city record of 91,169 set in 1968, and 9.9 deaths per thousand would merely put the mortality rate back about where it was in the early 1990s https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

One has to go back to 1918 to find an increase in mortality from the previous year as big as 2020's estimated 3.4 deaths per thousand.

The percent increase in mortality is the biggest since cholera arrived in North America in the early 1830s https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

One factor complicating comparisons is age: In 1918, 75% of influenza deaths were among those 39 and younger. In 2020, only 4% of Covid-19 fatalities have been 44 or younger.

The 1918 influenza pandemic was much worse in terms of number of life-years lost https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

Other quite-deadly infectious disease epidemics aren’t immediately visible on the mortality charts because they took years to play out

AIDS, for example, has killed a city-estimated 19,840 New Yorkers since 1982, most in the late 1980s and early 1990s https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

Still, in terms of the burden on hospitals and the sheer shock to the city and its economy, Covid-19 really does rate among the greatest public-health challenges of New York’s history.

People will be remarking upon it for centuries https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

Most of the rest of the U.S. hasn’t been nearly as hard hit by Covid-19 as New York, so the nationwide mortality-rate increase has been smaller.

In contrast to New York’s, though, it is still rising rapidly https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8 

Nationwide mortality data dates back to 1900, so here’s what that chart looks like with 300,000 more deaths than normal in 2020.

By this measure, Covid-19 is again the biggest deal since the 1918 pandemic, but it’s nowhere close to as big a deal as that https://trib.al/0ZhrSp8