Nine areas of data we need to manage the pandemic
Will we ever get control of this pandemic? We can, but better data will go a long way in helping us get there. Here are nine areas where I’d like to see improvement.
Read MoreTag: mortality data
The “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 MoreCOVID source callout: COVID-19 deaths in U.S. hospitals
The HHS changed their reporting requirements, no longer requiring hospitals to include COVID-19 deaths that occur at their facilities in daily reports. BUT: This is not the end of U.S. COVID-19 death reporting. The CDC’s death reporting system is continuing as usual.
Read MoreSix more things, January 9
Here are six other COVID-19 news items from the past week that didn’t quite warrant full posts. Including: CDC isolation guidance, a new reporting recipe, a variant that you should not freak out about, 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, October 24
Featured sources for the week of October 24 include more booster shot data from the CDC, racial disparities, executive approval, and leading causes of death.
Read MoreNew study reveals disparities in COVID-19 mortality by sex and race
A new study from the GenderSci Lab at Harvard sheds light on how race and sex intersect in COVID-19 death rates. Researchers Tamara Rushovich et al. used data from the only two states that do provide COVID-19 mortality data on sex and race: Georgia and Michigan. The patterns they found in both states complicate the well-known trend that men are more likely to die of COVID-19 than women.
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