Politics and public health are messy roommates. Honestly, if you’ve spent any time looking at the numbers for covid deaths under biden, you know the conversation usually turns into a shouting match before anyone actually looks at a spreadsheet. People want a simple "gotcha" moment. But the reality is a lot more complicated than a single talking point on a news ticker.
By the time Joe Biden took the oath of office in January 2021, the U.S. was already reeling. We were seeing nearly 3,000 deaths a day. The vaccine rollout had literally just started. Expectations were sky-high, yet the virus had other plans. It didn't just pack up and leave.
The Raw Numbers vs. The Reality
Let's get the big number out of the way. More people died of COVID-19 during the Biden administration than during the Trump administration. That’s a fact. According to data from the CDC and Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. crossed the 400,000 death mark right around the time Biden was inaugurated. By the time the official Public Health Emergency ended in May 2023, that number had surged past 1.1 million.
Why? Delta and Omicron happened.
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Those two variants changed the game entirely. Delta was more lethal; Omicron was incredibly contagious. Even though we had vaccines, the sheer volume of people getting sick meant that even a "smaller" percentage of severe cases translated into a massive number of bodies in the morgue. It’s a math problem that no policy could fully solve overnight.
The Partisan Death Gap
One of the weirdest and most tragic parts of this story is how where you live—and how you vote—started to predict whether you’d survive. You've probably heard about the "partisan gap" in mortality. Analysts from NPR and Brown University found that counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2020 saw significantly higher death rates during the Biden years than counties that voted for Biden.
It wasn't because of "blue state" or "red state" air. It was the vaccines.
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In late 2021, the death rate in the most pro-Trump counties was nearly three times higher than in the most pro-Biden counties. By 2026, looking back at the full data set, we see that misinformation played a literal role in the death toll. When public health advice becomes a political statement, people stop listening to doctors and start listening to influencers. The results were devastating.
Why the Death Toll Kept Climbing
You’d think with vaccines widely available by mid-2021, the deaths would have flatlined. They didn't.
- Waning Immunity: We learned the hard way that the first two shots weren't a lifetime shield. Boosters were needed, but "booster fatigue" set in fast.
- The "Mild" Omicron Myth: People called Omicron mild. For the individual, maybe. For the system? It was a tidal wave. It hit the elderly and the immunocompromised with zero mercy.
- The Return to Normal: As mask mandates vanished and "Back-to-Normal" became the goal, the virus found more targets.
Interestingly, a study published in JAMA Health Forum suggests that the U.S. had a much harder time than other wealthy nations. Our "excess deaths"—the number of people dying above what we’d expect in a normal year—stayed higher for longer. We didn't just have a COVID problem; we had a systemic health problem.
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What Most People Get Wrong
There’s this idea that the Biden administration "gave up" or that the vaccines "didn't work." Neither is true, but both feel true if you only look at the total death count.
The vaccines actually did a phenomenal job of keeping people out of the hospital. The problem was the sheer number of people who refused them or couldn't access regular care. By 2023, the CDC noted that about 66% of deaths were still among the unvaccinated or those not up-to-date on boosters.
Looking Toward the Future
We are in a different place now in 2026. The panic has faded, but the scars are there. If we want to prevent the next surge from looking like the covid deaths under biden era, we have to fix the trust gap.
Next Steps for Staying Safe:
- Check your status: If it's been more than a year since your last booster, your protection against severe disease is likely lower than you think.
- Monitor local levels: Use tools like the CDC’s wastewater tracking to see if a spike is happening in your zip code before you head to a crowded indoor event.
- Support public health: Advocate for funding in local health departments. The "national scandal" of our high death rate compared to Europe wasn't just about a virus; it was about a lack of basic primary care and health infrastructure.
The numbers tell a story of a country divided, a virus that mutated faster than our politics could handle, and a long road to recovery that we’re still walking.