NEW YORK (AP) — The number of U.S. deaths dropped this year, but there are still more than there were before the coronavirus hit.

Preliminary data — through the first 11 months of the year — indicates 2022 will see fewer deaths than the previous two COVID-19 pandemic years. Current reports suggest deaths may be down about 3% from 2020 and about 7% vs. 2021.

U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making last year the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million dying. If current trends continue, this year will mark the first annual decline in deaths since 2009.

It will be months before health officials have a full tally. The October and November numbers are not yet complete and a late-December surge could change the final picture, said Farida Ahmad, who leads mortality surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If the decline does hold, it will still be a far cry from where the nation was before the coronavirus appeared. This year’s count is likely to end up at least 13% higher than what it was in 2019.

“We’re (still) definitely worse off than we were before the pandemic,” said Amira Roess, a George Mason University professor of epidemiology and global health.

Once again, most of the annual change is due to the ebb and flow of COVID-19, which has killed more than 1,080,000 Americans since it first was recognized in the U.S. in early 2020.

This year started off horribly, with about 73,000 COVID deaths in January alone — the third deadliest month from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. For 2022, “the bulk of mortality was concentrated during that omicron wave at the beginning of the year,” said Iliya Gutin, a University of Texas researcher tracking COVID-19 mortality.

Monthly COVID-19 deaths dropped below 4,000 in April and averaged about 16,000 per month through November. The monthly average for 2021 was more than double that.

COVID-19 will nevertheless end up as the nation’s third leading cause of death this year, just as it was in 2020 and 2021 — behind the perennial leader, heart disease, and cancer.

Heart disease deaths, which have tended to surge in tandem with COVID-19 deaths, are on track to be down from 2021, Ahmad said. And it’s not clear whether the number of cancer deaths will change, based on preliminary data.

There may be some relatively good news regarding drug overdose deaths, which hit an all-time high last year. Provisional overdose death data posted by the CDC on Wednesday — through the first seven months of this year — suggests overdose deaths stopped climbing early this year, around last winter’s end.

Also Wednesday, the CDC released its first report on deaths involving long COVID — long-term symptoms after a person has recovered from coronavirus infection. The CDC estimates that about 3,500 deaths from January 2020 through June 2022 involved long COVID. That’s about 1% of deaths in which COVID was deemed the underlying or contributing cause.

Experts believe pharmaceutical weapons against the coronavirus have been making a difference. The Commonwealth Fund this week released a modeling study that concluded the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program prevented more than 3.2 million deaths.

“We all really would expect that the number of deaths — and the number of severe cases — would decrease, due to a combination of immunity from natural infection and vaccination … and treatment,” Roess said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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BOSTON (AP) — International students are returning to U.S. colleges in stronger numbers this year, but the rebound has yet to make up for last year’s historic declines as COVID-19 continues to disrupt academic exchange, according to a new survey.

Nationwide, American colleges and universities saw a 4% annual increase in international students this fall, according to survey results released Monday by the Institute of International Education. But that follows a decrease of 15% last year — the steepest decline since the institute began publishing data in 1948.

The upturn is better than many colleges were forecasting over the summer as the delta variant surged. But it also reflects continued obstacles as visa backlogs persist and as some students show reluctance to study abroad during the pandemic.

Universities and U.S. officials hope this year’s uptick is the start of a long-term rebound. As international travel ramps up, there’s optimism that colleges will see growth past their pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect a surge following the pandemic,” Matthew Lussenhop, an acting U.S. assistant secretary of state, told reporters. This year’s increase indicates that international students “continue to value a U.S. education and remain committed to pursuing studies in the United States,” he added.

Overall, 70% of U.S. colleges reported an uptick in international students this fall, while 20% saw decreases and 10% remained level, according to the institute. That’s based on a preliminary survey of more than 800 U.S. schools.

At least some of the increase is due to new students who hoped to come to the U.S. last year but delayed their plans because of the pandemic. All told, there was a 68% increase in newly enrolled international students this year, a dramatic increase compared with last year’s decrease of 46%.

For many schools, even a modest upturn is a relief. Over the summer, officials at U.S. universities worried that the delta variant would dash any hopes of a rebound. But for many, that did not come to pass.

In August, U.S. embassies and consulates in India reported that they had issued visas to a record 55,000 students even after starting the process two months late because of COVID-19.

Among those was Kedar Basatwar, who enrolled this fall in a graduate program for business analytics at Northeastern University in Boston, one of the nation’s most popular destinations for foreign students. The 24-year-old from Pune, India, held off applying to American schools at the height of the pandemic because he wanted to make sure he’d be able to attend classes in-person.

“My plan was always to come to the U.S. because the opportunities after getting a masters are so much more,” said Basatwar. “Also, getting a U.S. visa is one of the biggest achievements that we consider in India.”

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, officials are seeing “a return to normal for our international populations,” said Andy Borst, director of undergraduate admissions. The university enrolled more than 10,000 international students this fall, which nearly offsets a 28% decline from last year.

“We just had this pent-up demand,” Borst said. “A lot of Big Ten schools saw increases beyond what we were expecting.”

At some schools with big brands overseas, enrollments rebounded past their 2019 figures.

At the University of Rochester in New York, enrollments from abroad surged 70% over 2019 levels, driven by a boom in graduate students, according to school data.

The vast majority of U.S. colleges returned to in-person learning by this fall, but not all international students are physically on campus. After last year’s shift to remote learning, many schools have continued offering online classes to students abroad.

Out of all international students enrolled at U.S. colleges this year, the survey found that about 65% were taking classes on campus.

Fangzhou Gu, a 21-year-old senior from Beijing, is among those who opted not to return to New York University’s Greenwich Village campus for her final semester this fall before graduating in December.

Instead she’s taking classes at the university’s outpost in Shanghai, an option offered throughout the pandemic by NYU, which has seen international enrollments increase 14% from 2019.

Gu said her remaining course load doesn’t require her to be in New York, and her parents are concerned about her venturing too far from home.

“Class and classmates are more close, which really gives me a sense of community that I have longed for,” she said. “Plus, the living expenses are less of a burden here.”

For some colleges, the new flexibility of online learning helped avoid further enrollment setbacks. In the past, students at the University of San Francisco might have been able to start the term a week late if they faced visa or travel problems. Now, those facing visa delays can arrive halfway through the term or later, and in the meantime study online from abroad.

That was the case for Vinh Le, who was unable to get to the airport in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City in time for the start of fall classes. Instead, the graduate student studied online for more than two months until he could get his first vaccine shot, which allowed him to travel. He arrived at the University of San Francisco on Nov. 1.

International students are seen as important contributors to U.S. campuses for a variety of reasons. Colleges say they help provide a diverse mix of cultures and views on campus. Many end up working in high-demand fields after graduating. And some colleges rely on the financial benefits of international students, who are typically charged higher tuition rates.

Although many colleges avoided a second year of declines, there’s still concern that the upturn may be isolated to certain types of colleges. The survey found that, last year, community colleges suffered much steeper declines than four-year universities, with a 24% backslide nationwide.

Researchers are still analyzing this year’s data, but some worry community colleges may continue to lag behind.

There are also questions about whether the rebound will continue. New vaccine requirements for foreign travelers could make it harder for some students to get here, and colleges are expecting continued competition from colleges in Australia, Canada and other nations looking to boost international populations.

Still, officials at many colleges are optimistic. More vaccines are being sent overseas, and newly lifted travel bans promise to reduce barriers to travel.

Some also credit President Joe Biden for sending a message that America wants students from abroad. In July, the administration issued a statement promising a “renewed” commitment to international education, saying it would work to make overseas students feel welcome.

For Paola Giammattei, a 21-year-old junior studying at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the concern now isn’t so much her classes, but whether companies will still be willing to hire foreign graduates on short-term visas, given the current job market.

In the meantime, the chemical engineering major has embraced the return of campus life after she attended classes remotely at home in El Salvador early in the pandemic.

“Being in a classroom, being able to engage with other peers and professors is awesome,” Giammattei said. “It is easier to differentiate and have a good life-work balance when everything is in-person and you have different interactions in different settings, not through a screen.”

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