Nearly 3 in 4 counties across America suffered more deaths than births between the middle of 2020 and the middle of 2021, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, as the coronavirus pandemic claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and slowed the nation’s growth rate to its slowest pace in history. More people died than were born in 2,297 of the nation’s 3,143 counties last year, the largest number of counties to record a natural decrease in American history. The new figures show more than 3.4 million Americans died in the yearlong period covered by the new data; the highest number of deaths ever recorded in a single year. The figure is 20% greater than it was two years ago before the pandemic began.