Keep watching this data set from CDC, which juxtaposes the COVID-19 death data and excess death data. www.cdc.gov/...
If politicians or higher-ups in the CDC want to temporarily hide the extent of coronavirus deaths in the US, then the reporting that is currently available from CDC will continue to be aggregated across multiple months, instead of becoming better and more nuanced. Currently the data is aggregated over 2 months, but reporting out weekly data could provide us with even more grim news...
The CDC’s death data indicates that NYC had some 418 excess deaths that were not attributed to COVID-19 (from February 1 through March 28). Adding these deaths to the 579 deaths from COVID-19, results in 72% more deaths than attributed to COVID-19 (math: [418+579]/579=1.72).
More math [skippable]: The New York City data currently published by CDC says there were 579 deaths from COVID-19 during that 2-month period. CDC reported a total of 10,970 deaths in NYC during this period, and CDC calculated that this is 110 percent of the normal amount of deaths. This means there appear to have been an “extra” 997 deaths during this period. If we subtract the 579 COVID-19 deaths from the 997 total excess deaths, this results in 418 excess deaths not currently attributed to COVID-19. (Looking at weekly data could reveal that the proportion of excess deaths is substantially higher.)
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Many recent news reports have pointed out how the only way we really know the extent of deaths from COVID-19 would be the data on excess deaths.
For example, the Washington Post just published a story that says the US is under-counting COVID-19 deaths:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts only deaths in which the presence of the coronavirus is confirmed in a laboratory test. “We know that it is an underestimation,” agency spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said.
A widespread lack of access to testing in the early weeks of the U.S. outbreak means people with respiratory illnesses died without being counted, epidemiologists say
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To estimate the total fatalities from a disease, scientists often look at “excess deaths”— the number of deaths over and above the average number during a particular period.
The most robust estimates require national statistics that in the United States can take two or three years to compile, according to Cécile Viboud, a National Institutes of Health scientist who co-authored the study estimating the U.S. undercount during the H1N1 flu.
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DATA COMPLETENESS AND TIMELINESS
FYI, the CDC data also has a big asterisk and says that the data may not be complete (because the reporting by some States is not as timely):
It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods.
In December 2016, the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System reported that the death data is 95% complete at 6-months (PDF link to NVSS Rapid Release).
But some States like New York (and New York City) appear to have much more timely death data. This data should be made available to the public for a weekly basis as soon as feasible, so we know how bad things really are. It feels really bad right now in NYC.
It looks like the current timeliness of the state data can be obtained by hovering over the death data that CDC publishes for its FluView tracker. In New York and NYC, the level of completeness of the FluView death data is 100% for the week ending March 21, 2010. Therefore, New York and Coumo could already release the full death data on a weekly basis for New York State and New York City and this data could come out on about a 2 or 3 week delay. The timeliness of the death data varies across States, with some States (like Connecticut and North Carolina) having less than 20% completeness on CDC’s FluView
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RELATED NEWS STORIES ON EXCESS DEATHS
“Covid-19’s death toll appears higher than official figures suggest: Measuring the total number of deaths tells a grimmer tale” from www.economist.com/...
“The Mystery of ‘Excess Fatality’”nymag.com/...
“‘Excess death’ figures cannot be sugar-coated” from www.ft.com/…
"Italy’s Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported” from www.wsj.com/…
