Covid 19 coronavirus: US record deadliest year yet in history with states desperately in search for medical staff 22 Dec, 2020 05:14 AM 7 minutes to read A Registered Nurse works on a computer while assisting a Covid-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Centre in Los Angeles. Photo / AP AP This is the deadliest year in US history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic. Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019. US deaths increase most years, so some annual rise in fatalities is expected. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15 per cent, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted.