Isn’t COVID likely to be the #1 killer of most professions in 2020/2021, since most professions are mercifully not that dangerous anymore? LEO isn’t in the top 10 of the life threatening profession list in US, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-i... . I’d wager COVID was also the #1 killer of retail clerks, florists, and probably software engineers for the last two years as well.
It seems like the other most common killers, heart disease and cancer, tend to take you out with more predictability and on a longer time scale (barring surprise heart attacks). I would expect that a large percentage of people dying of these diseases leave their jobs (voluntarily or laid off) before they die of it, making them less common causes of death for active professionals.
On the other hand, covid hits people fast and hard. One day you're fine and working and the next week you're on a ventilator, so these deaths are more likely to happen to people still actively employed.
And we see exactly this reflected in this data. There were 15 heart attacks and no reported cancer deaths, and 231 covid deaths in 2021, even though the overall death rate of covid is comparable to those two.
Nobody stays on the job when they know they have a few months left to live.