Excessive drinking during the covid-19 pandemic increased alcoholic liver disease deaths so much that the condition killed more Californians than car accidents or breast cancer, a KFF Health News analysis has found.
Lockdowns made people feel isolated, depressed, and anxious, leading some to increase their alcohol intake. Alcohol sales rose during the pandemic, with especially large jumps in the consumption of spirits.
While this led to a rise in all sorts of alcohol-related deaths, the number of Californians dying from alcoholic liver disease spiked dramatically, with 14,209 deaths between 2020 and 2022, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
