While I can easily go on for hours on mortality trends, let me get straight to the point in the table and video below (only 12 and a half minutes long).
Top Causes of Death in the United States, 2018-2021
Video Presentation
And here is a video: [12.5 minutes]
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:49 2018-2019
02:19 Old people
03:40 2017-2018 flu season
05:39 Suicide
06:19 Pandemic era
07:02 COVID
07:17 Heart disease increased
07:40 Cancer stayed the same
08:02 What counts as a COVID death?
09:07 Accidents went up
09:26 Stroke - up then stayed
09:34 Chronic lower respiratory disease - down a lot
09:50 Alzheimers - up and down
10:12 Diabetes - increased
10:29 Thinking like an actuary
11:24 Ranking is bumpy
Spreadsheet
The table and the original data draws from CDC WONDER on which the table is based are in the spreadsheet below.