Day after day, Louisiana has tracked the official death toll from COVID-19, but a new analysis by the New York Times seeks to better assess the effects of the disease by measuring the deaths that may have been caused by the pandemic of the coronavirus in general.
The report sheds more light on “excessive deaths” by taking the number of total deaths from all causes reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between March 15 and July 18 and comparing it to the number of deaths in the same period in previous years.
Then, state by state, it subtracts the number of confirmed coronavirus deaths from the total number of excessive deaths during this period to present a picture of how many extra lives could be claimed by the rise of the pandemic.
In Louisiana, for example, there were 4,900 excessive deaths from March 15 to July 18 and 3,508 were direct from COVID-19, leaving roughly 1,400 additional deaths unexplained. It also said that the death rate of the state during this period was 32% above normal.
Many epidemiologists believe that measuring excessive deaths is the best way to assess the impact of the virus in real time, reports the NYT, because it can show how the virus changes normal patterns of mortality.
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The Times-Picayune and The Advocate have investigated the phenomenon of excessive deaths locally on a few occasions.
While measuring excessive deaths does not give an exact reason why each person died, the NYT assumes that most of the excessive deaths are related to the coronavirus itself.
However, it is also possible that deaths due to other causes have been exacerbated by the tension in hospitals in some hot spots that force delays in some treatments and may scare people into seeking care for diseases that typically survive.
You can read the full report and dataset of the NYT here.
Louisiana’s coronavirus – related death toll exceeded 4,000 on Thursday, making it the 12th state to report at least that many casualties.
