Sources and updates, January 22
Sources and updates for the week of January 22 include respiratory virus hospitalizations, new excess death estimates, wastewater testing on airplanes, and more.
Read MoreTag: excess deaths
New CDC report vastly underestimates deaths with Long COVID
On Wednesday, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NHCS) released a major report on deaths from Long COVID. To identify a small (but significant) number of deaths, NCHS researchers searched through the text of death certificates for Long COVID-related terms. Their study demonstrates how bad our current health data systems are at capturing the results of chronic disease.
Read MoreThe “one million deaths” milestone fails to capture the pandemic’s true toll
This week, many headlines declared that the U.S. has reached one million COVID-19 deaths. While a major milestone, this number is actually far below the full impact of the pandemic; looking at excess deaths and demographic breakdowns allows us to get closer.
Read MoreNew CDC mortality data release from the Documenting COVID-19 project
The Documenting COVID-19 project recently released a GitHub data repository that provides county-level CDC mortality data from 2020 and 2021. We’re hoping other reporters will use it to investigate deaths during the pandemic in their regions.
Read MoreSources and updates, March 20
Sources and updates for the week of March 20 include a revamped tracker for deaths by race and ethnicity, the CDC possibly taking back hospital data reporting, global excess deaths, and more.
Read MoreNew CDC mortality data: “Real-time public health surveillance at a highly granular level”
This past Monday, the CDC put out a major data release: mortality data for 2020 and 2021, encompassing the pandemic’s impact on deaths from all causes in the U.S. The new data allow researchers and reporters to investigate excess deaths, a measure of the pandemic’s true toll—comparing the number of deaths that occurred in a particular region, during a particular year, to deaths that would’ve been expected had COVID-19 not occurred. At the same time, the new data allow for investigations into COVID-19 disparities and increased deaths of non-COVID causes during the pandemic.
Read MoreFeatured sources, July 18
Featured sources for July 18 include coronavirus variants, long COVID, excess deaths, vaccine hesitancy, and more.
Read MorePeru audits deaths data, shows the value of excess deaths
Excess deaths are those deaths that occur above a region’s past baseline. Data scientists calculate the metric by determining the average deaths for a country or region over a period of several years—then comparing this past average to the deaths that occured in the current year. The deaths occurring in the current year above that […]
Read MoreFeatured sources, May 23
Featured sources for the week of May 23 include nursing home outbreaks, excess deaths, and vaccine consent laws.
Read MoreFeatured sources, July 26
Featured sources for July 26 include the COVID Racial Data Tracker and excess deaths.
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