the COVID-19-19 the death toll in the US may be nearly 30 percent higher than previously thought, according to a study. Writing in the diary JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers said, the estimated gap may be explained in part by the initial lack of widespread evidence.
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Medical personnel transfer a deceased patient to a refrigerated truck serving as a temporary morgue at the Brooklyn Hospital Center on April 9, 2020 in New York City.
Six months in COVID-19-19 pandemic, more than 10.6 million COVID-19-19 cases have been confirmed worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States, which has been hit by a recent surge in cases in the south and west, has the majority of cases at 2.6 million, and the majority of deaths, at more than 128,000.
The researchers estimated the number of undocumented deaths from COVID-19 by counting what is known as “excess deaths.” This is a common way for experts to measure the impact of a new infectious pathogen, such as pandemic flu, when comprehensive evidence is lacking, according to the team.
They did this by calculating a baseline number of expected deaths in the US between March 1 and May 30 in years prior to 2020. They then subtracted the expected number of deaths each week from documented deaths between March 1 and on May 30, 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had struck.
Daniel M. Weinberger, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, and colleagues included 48 states and the District of Columbia in the study, but excluded North Carolina and Connecticut due to data problems.
Data accessed on June 12, 2020 revealed that approximately 781,000 people died in the US between March 1 and May 30, 2020, including 122,300 excess deaths compared to previous years.
There were 95,235 excess deaths attributed to COVID-19, which means that 28 percent of the 122,300 excess deaths from any cause have not been attributed to the disease.
The team noted that the National Center for Health Statistics, from which they extracted some of the data, may be incomplete due to delays in reporting.
The study revealed that death toll and data integrity varied “remarkably” across states.
In Texas, Arizona, and California, approximately 55 percent, 53 percent, and 41 percent of excess deaths were not attributed to COVID-19-19, respectively.
States like New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Illinois, and Michigan also saw an increase in excess deaths. But others, particularly in the smaller states of the central United States and northern New England, had small or insignificant increases. For example, 12 percent of excess deaths in Minnesota were not attributed to COVID-19-19.
The moment of when COVID-19-19 tests started and augmented at a particular location may explain the discrepancies, the team said. In states like Texas and California, excess deaths occurred several weeks before it became widespread. COVID-19-19 tests were implemented, while the intensity of the tests increased before excess deaths in states like Massacushetts and Minnesota Guidelines on How to Record Deaths Related to COVID-19-19 when a person has not tested positive for coronavirusAnd if a person died in the hospital or at home, it can also play a role.
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Over the course of the pandemic, excess deaths and reports COVID-19-19 deaths have been “better aligned”, perhaps due to more evidence and better recognition of COVID-19-19 symptoms, the authors said.
The team recognized that the data could be biased by the pandemic that changes the way people seek medical care and how conditions are recorded. the recommendations They were limited because they were based on provisional data that was incomplete due to reporting delays in some states.
But the researchers still believe the study suggests that estimating the number of fatalities based on excess deaths may be “more reliable” than reported deaths, particularly in areas that lack widespread evidence.
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