Right now, covid is the leading cause of death. It wasn't the case in 2020, but now, it is.
For the "roughly doubles", it is, as I said a rough idea in a high income country, something I forgot to mention. It is probably less overall but not by a huge amount. It is relatively consistent with a 1% IFR. It is age dependent but surprisingly not by that much, simply because older people are more likely to die of any cause.
> How many people even knows what chance it is they will die this year?
That question is meaningless. The nature of probabilities is that you don't know. For example, if you are playing Russian roulette, just before you press the trigger, you can estimate your chances of death quite accurately to be 1/6. But there is no intrinsic value to that number. To someone who can see the bullet in front of the hammer, it is closer to 100%, and to someone who knows the gun is jammed, it is closer to 0%.
>Right now, covid is the leading cause of death. It wasn't the case in 2020, but now, it is.
Are you implying you think covid will kill more americans than heart disease in 2021 based on this incomplete data set?
>>How many people even knows what chance it is they will die this year?
>That question is meaningless.
It is not meaningless for people who care to take personal responsibility for their own health, and who want to make informed decisions based on a data driven risk analysis.
However, most Americans do not care to take personal responsibility for their health, so you're right that such people are not concerned with such information.
One good thing about living in this time is that facts are trivial to look up. All the stastistical data is publicly available.
The leading cause of death in the US is still heart disease, then cancer.
> If you catch covid, it roughly doubles your chances of dying for the year
Not according to the CDC statistics, unless you mean some specific group, such as those aged 85+.
How many people even knows what chance it is they will die this year?