See Full Story Rachel Grumman Bender December 18, 2020, 9:19 AM As the mortality rate from COVID-19 continues to climb nationwide, researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University state in a new JAMA editorial that the virus has emerged as the leading cause of death in the U.S. — killing more than 3,000 Americans a day. To put the daily death toll from COVID-19 in context, the researchers state: “The daily U.S. mortality rate for COVID-19 deaths is equivalent to the September 11, 2001, attacks, which claimed 2,988 lives, occurring every 1.5 days, or 15 Airbus 320 jetliners, each carrying 150 passengers, crashing every day.” The authors of the editorial — Dr. Steven H. Woolf, the director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Society and Health; Derek A. Chapman, associate professor in the division of epidemiology; and Jong Hyung Lee — noted that “daily mortality rates for heart disease and cancer, which for decades have been the two leading causes of death, are approximately 1,700 and 1,600 deaths per day, respectively. With COVID-19 mortality rates now exceeding these thresholds, this infectious disease has become deadlier than heart disease and cancer, and its lethality may increase further as transmission increases with holiday travel and gatherings and with the intensified indoor exposure that winter brings.”