Why Bradenton’s gap between births and deaths grew wider in 2020, Census data shows
Manatee and Sarasota are among the 73% of all U.S. counties that counted more deaths than births during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While having more deaths than births is not unusual for the Bradenton and Sarasota areas, the gap widened in 2020.
In pre-pandemic 2019, Manatee County had 3,482 births and 4,364 deaths. With the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020, the number of births dropped to 3,393, while number of deaths increased to 4,829.
When deaths exceed births, that’s what the U.S. Census Bureau calls a “natural decrease” in population.
In 2021, fewer births, an aging population and increased mortality intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic all contributed to a rise in natural decrease across the United States, the Census Bureau said.
Between the start of the pandemic in January 2020 and March 19, 2022, Manatee County has had 1,269 COVID-related deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
What those figures don’t account for is the influx of new residents, which keeps the population growing. That trend actually increased during the pandemic.
The Census Bureau estimated Manatee County’s population at 412,703 on July 1, 2021, up from 399,710 on April 1, 2020.
It’s an influx that has helped worsen the Bradenton area’s housing shortage and drive up the cost of existing single-family houses and rentals.
While the pandemic is not over, there have been fewer deaths recently from COVID-19, and the number of births has been rebounding.
That will come as no surprise to Bradenton Herald readers. One year ago, the Herald reported that the number of babies born in Manatee County was increasing.
The Florida Department of Health has provisionally counted 3,596 births in Manatee County in 2021, an increase of 203 from 2020.
The Herald requested birth figures from three area hospitals for 2019, 2020 and 2021. While Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center did not immediately respond to the request, Sarasota Memorial Hospital reported 4,118 births in 2019, 3,910 in 2020 and 4,247 in 2021.
Typically, about 25% of mothers giving birth at SMH are from Manatee County, a hospital spokesperson said.
In Sarasota County, there has been an even greater disparity in births and deaths than in Manatee County. In 2019, Sarasota had 3,101 more deaths than births.
In 2020, Sarasota had 4,148 more deaths than births, Florida Health Department stats show.
Of the 384 metro areas in the United States, 55.5% experienced natural decrease in 2021.
The highest levels of natural decrease in the country were reported for Pittsburgh, 10,838, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, 9,291, and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, 6,643, the Census Bureau said.
“Even though over time we’ve seen a higher number of counties with natural decrease and net international migration continuing to decline, in the past year, the contribution of domestic migration counteracted these trends so there were actually more counties growing than losing population,” the Census Bureau’s Christine Hartley said in a press release.
“In many cases, there was a shift from larger, more populous counties to medium and smaller ones. These patterns contributed to population increases in 1,822 counties (58.0%), while 1,313 (41.8%) lost residents, and eight (0.3%) saw no change in population,” she said.
