It is now likely that more than 56,000 Americans will die of flu this year.

That was the prediction made on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s how many died in the 2014-15 flu season, and new infection rates and hospitalization rates — the best predictors of mortality — are now higher than they were at this point that season.

If President Trump can claim credit for the fact that no Americans died in plane crashes in his first year in office, he must also shoulder some blame for this — and the connection to the White House is much easier to draw.

The Trump administration did not choose the leaders of the Federal Aviation Administration or the National Transportation Safety Board who oversaw a decade of declining plane crash deaths, part of a worldwide trend. But Mr. Trump’s disastrous choices for public-health leadership did contribute to the deaths that will occur between now and summer.

His first secretary for Health and Human Services, Tom Price, resigned in disgrace last September after it was revealed that he spent $400,000 chartering private jets at taxpayer expense. The president’s choice for C.D.C. director, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned in January after reports that she had recently bought stock in a tobacco company. That capped months of recusing herself from various official duties because she owned shares in biotech and health-information companies.