On Friday, April 24, 2020 at 7:21:49 AM UTC-7, Jim Kellett wrote:
On Thursday, April 23, 2020 at 9:53:14 PM UTC-4, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

Quick update: The US death toll from Covid-19 now stands at about 50,000, and that's in only about 2.5 months since the first US death reported. A bad influenza year might incur 60,000 deaths over 12 months.

A lot depends on how we look at these data. If you average out the deaths from all causes by the week, we find that for the last two weeks COVID-19 is right now THE leading cause of death in the US! So it's serious, and certainly far more contagious than cardiovascular disease, cancer, auto accidents, whatever . . .
Jim

No, COVID19 is NOT the leading cause of death - that would be heart disease (647,457 in 2017) followed closely by cancer. COVID19 would come in 10th, right behind nephrotic syndrome, at the current level. It will probably end up in eight place between flu and diabetes.