During the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals with chronic medical conditions have felt the stress and worry of what may happen if they contracted COVID-19. End-stage kidney disease (ESKD), where dialysis is warranted, may lead to more severe cases of COVID-19 due to weaker immune systems and multiple health conditions among patients. 

With ESKD patients at higher risk for severe COVID-19, has the total number of deaths increased during the pandemic? Learn what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has discovered on ESKD death totals in 2020 compared to previous years.* 

What the agency did

Every dialysis clinic is required to use a national database registry called Crownweb to report administrative data, which includes patients’ deaths. From this, researchers abstracted data on patient deaths. 

Death data was collected during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic from February 1st through August 31, 2021. The number of deaths was analyzed and compared to the number of deaths from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2019. 

What the agency found

The national trend in ESKD deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic was higher when compared to previous years. The analysis estimated 8.7–12.9 excess deaths per 1,000 ESRD patients, or a total of 6,953–10,316 excess deaths in a population of 798,611 ESRD patients during February 1st through August 31, 2020. 

What it means

With a clear excess amount of deaths in those with comorbidities during the pandemic, it would be beneficial to continue to do further research. Analyzing the causes of death as well as geographic and the rate and time of which new cases are occurring would help to determine specific areas of focus for the medical field. 

*Ziemba R, Campbell KN, Yang T, et al. Excess Death Estimates in Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease — United States, February–August 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:825–829. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7022e2external icon