“COVID-19 death counts in the United States during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic were systematically inflated for political reasons.”

We find that official COVID-19 mortality substantially understates actual mortality, excess deaths cannot be explained entirely by official COVID-19 death counts. … We find substantial excess all-cause mortality that exceeds the number of documented COVID-19 deaths in most of the 13 states evaluated: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Official Covid-19 death counts have underestimated the mortality impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. … An estimated 936,911 excess deaths occurred during 2020 and 2021, of which 171,168 (18.3%) were not assigned to Covid-19 on death certificates as an underlying cause of death.

Overall, we found that for every 100 deaths assigned to COVID-19, 120 all-cause deaths occurred (95% CI, 116 to 124), implying that 17% (95% CI, 14% to 19%) of excess deaths were ascribed to causes of death other than COVID-19 itself. … Vital registration data sourced from death certificates on cause of death are likely to underestimate the mortality burden associated with the COVID-19 pandemic for several reasons [4, 5] . First, some direct deaths attributable to COVID-19 may be assigned to other causes of death due to an absence of widespread testing and low rates of diagnoses at the time of death [6] . … In this study, we estimated that 17% of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic were not assigned to COVID-19 on death certificates.

In the United States, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) deaths are captured through the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System and death certificates reported to the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). However, not all COVID-19 deaths are recognized and reported because of limitations in testing, exacerbation of chronic health conditions that are listed as the cause of death, or delays in reporting. … We estimated that 766,611 deaths attributable to COVID-19 occurred in the United States from March 8, 2020-May 29, 2021. Of these, 184,477 (24%) deaths were not documented on death certificates.

We estimated that 766,611 deaths attributable to COVID-19 occurred in the United States from March 8, 2020—May 29, 2021. Of these, 184,477 (24%) deaths were not documented on death certificates. … Counting deaths via either nationally notifiable disease reporting or vital statistics might underestimate the full burden of COVID-19 mortality … Deaths related to a COVID-19 illness may go unrecognized because of changes to health seeking behaviours in the population, limitations in testing, exacerbation of chronic health conditions that are instead listed as the cause of death, or delays in reporting.

Overall, we found that for every 100 deaths assigned to COVID-19, 120 all-cause deaths occurred (95% CI, 116 to 124), implying that 17% (95% CI, 14% to 19%) of excess deaths were ascribed to causes of death other than COVID-19 itself. … Vital registration data sourced from death certificates on cause of death are likely to underestimate the mortality burden associated with the COVID-19 pandemic for several reasons [4, 5] . First, some direct deaths attributable to COVID-19 may be assigned to other causes of death due to an absence of widespread testing and low rates of diagnoses at the time of death [6] . … In this study, we estimated that 17% of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic were not assigned to COVID-19 on death certificates.

Our results identify significant departures from the Benford distribution for both the first and second digits in the reported county-level COVID-19 data. These findings suggest that COVID-19 data are anomalous and that infection cases and deaths may be underreported (Nigrini, 1996). … Specifically, the analyses indicate data reported by Republican counties possess more significant departures from Benford's Law than Democratic counties. … Overall, the results provide evidence that the political landscape likely influenced the integrity of COVID-19 reporting.

In the United States, Jankowicz (2020) and Mendez (2021) reported that the Trump administration pressed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to revise reported Covid cases and deaths downward. … Consistent with this, the analysis below finds far less evidence of misreporting in Brazil and in the United States than in Iran, Belarus, and Nicaragua.

Here, we use machine learning trained on US death certificates from March 2020 to December 2021 to predict 155,536 (95% uncertainty interval: 150,062 to 161,112) unrecognized COVID-19 deaths. This indicates that 19% more COVID-19 deaths occurred in the US than officially reported. … Together, this study indicates that the US death investigation system reported COVID-19 deaths in a systematically inequitable way that hid the true extent of pandemic mortality and inequities. … In this way, whether intentional or not, undercounting of COVID-19 deaths has functioned to absolve politicians and health policy-makers of responsibility for some of these failures.

Articles shared thousands of times on Facebook claim the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) increased the Covid-19 death toll by 1,600 percent because they illegally altered rules for reporting mortality data. This is false; the CDC’s chief of mortality statistics said the claim “doesn’t have any validity,” and public health attorneys said the agency’s actions did not violate the law.

As some deaths due to COVID-19 may be assigned to other causes of deaths (for example, if COVID-19 was not diagnosed or not mentioned on the death certificate), tracking all-cause mortality can provide information about whether an excess number of deaths is observed, even when COVID-19 mortality may be undercounted.

As of October 15, 216,025 deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported in the United States*; however, this number might underestimate the total impact of the pandemic on mortality. … Finally, estimates of excess deaths attributed to COVID-19 might underestimate the actual number directly attributable to COVID-19, because deaths from other causes might represent misclassified COVID-19–related deaths or deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic.

These updated estimates indicate that approximately one half to two thirds of one million excess deaths occurred during January 26, 2020–February 27, 2021, suggesting that the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality is substantially greater than the number of COVID-19 deaths.

Limited availability of testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic might have resulted in an underestimation of COVID-19–associated deaths.

deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported in the United States*; however, this number might underestimate the total impact of the pandemic on mortality. … Estimates of the numbers of deaths directly attributable to COVID-19 might be limited by factors such as the availability and use of diagnostic testing (including postmortem testing) and the accurate and complete reporting of cause of death information on the death certificate.

Between March 1, 2020, and January 2, 2021, the US experienced 2 801 439 deaths, 22.9% more than expected, representing 522 368 excess deaths (Table). … Deaths attributed to COVID-19 accounted for 72.4% of US excess deaths. … Excess deaths not attributed to COVID-19 could reflect either immediate or delayed mortality from undocumented COVID-19 infection, or non–COVID-19 deaths secondary to the pandemic, such as from delayed care or behavioral health crises.

When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death on the death certificate, it is coded and counted as a death due to COVID-19. COVID-19 should not be reported on the death certificate if it did not cause or contribute to the death.

There are several reasons why excess deaths may not be assigned to COVID-19. First, the death may have been directly related to COVID-19 but unrecognized as a COVID-19 death by the certifier. … This could occur due to a lack of COVID-19 testing before death, a lack of post-mortem COVID-19 testing due to limited death investigation resources, or resistance to assigning the death to COVID-19 from the deceased’s family or the death certifier as a result of personal or political beliefs.

States that lean more democrat in ideology were found to assign significantly more Covid-19 related deaths than the average state -coined a bluestate political death creep. … In our perspective, states with more democrat leaning legislatures (blue) assigned, on average, more Covid-19 related deaths as a result of the new liberal death reporting guidelines.Deciphering a specific motivation is left to the reader.

Viral posts wrongly suggest that the COVID-19 death toll is exaggerated because “the state” has instructed that “anyone who didnt die by a gun shot wound or car accident” be listed as a coronavirus victim. Experts say there is no such default classification — and that the U.S. death count is probably underestimated. … But there’s no evidence that any state has adopted a policy to classify all deaths, regardless of the individual circumstances, as being related to COVID-19. … “The true facts are that COVID-19 deaths will likely be underreported on death certificates and not over-reported,” Aiken said.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s early death toll was much higher than the official U.S. count, according to a new study that spotlights dramatic disparities in the uncounted deaths. … About 840,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported on death certificates in 2020 and 2021. But a group of researchers — using a form of artificial intelligence — estimate that as many as 155,000 unrecognized additional deaths likely occurred in that time outside of hospitals. That would mean about 16% of COVID-19 deaths went uncounted in those years.

Experts say President Trump’s claim that COVID deaths are being overcounted is inaccurate. Most agree they are undercounted. … Said Jeff Engel, senior adviser for COVID-19 at the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists: “Public health is charged with the duty to collect accurate, timely and complete data. We’re not incentivized to overcount or undercount for any political or funding reason.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t drastically reduced the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19, but posts making that bogus claim have been circulating widely — with the help of President Donald Trump, who retweeted one such claim on Aug. 30. … “So the numbers you’ve been hearing — the 180,000-plus deaths — are real deaths from Covid-19. Let [there] not be any confusion about that,” Fauci said. … In 92% of all deaths that mention COVID-19, that disease is listed as the underlying cause of death, Jeff Lancashire, spokesman for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, told FactCheck.org in an email.

Note that guidance for certifying deaths due to COVID-19 has remained consistent throughout the pandemic. … It is important to note that, when a condition is identified as a contributing cause of death, the cause of death certifier believed that the condition was significant enough to contribute to the fatal outcome and was not an incidental finding.

Claims on social media have been spreading the falsehood that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly lowered the COVID-19 death toll. There has been no such reduction. These claims confuse two different measures of the number of deaths. … This message — made explicit in some posts and implicit in others — furthers the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was planned or is a hoax.

There’s no evidence of orchestrated inflation, but parsing the role that the disease plays in some deaths is not always easy for doctors — nor is the process clear to the public.

Those people almost certainly died from COVID-19, according to an examination of newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but their death certificates don’t mention it. Instead, they list conditions with symptoms that look a lot like COVID-19, such as Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension and diabetes.

The purpose of this report is to provide guidance to death certifiers on proper cause-of-death certification for cases where confirmed or suspected COVID–19 infection resulted in death. … When COVID–19 is determined to be a cause of death, it is important that it be reported on the death certificate to assess accurately the effects of this pandemic and appropriately direct public health response.

Depending on seasonal benchmark, 287 957-306 267 excess deaths occurred through September 2020: 179 903 (58.7%-62.5%) attributed to COVID-19; 44 022-49 311 (15.2%-16.1%) to other reported causes; 64 032-77 054 (22.2%-25.2%) unexplained (unspecified or unreported cause).

Estimation of the real burden imposed by the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in its first year has been challenged by numerous factors including limited testing, the large fraction of asymptomatic or subclinical cases, and questions surrounding whether deceased individuals died of COVID-19 as the primary cause or as one of several contributing conditions [1] [2] [3] . Under these circumstances, analysis of excess mortality data represents one way to assess the actual impact of the pandemic on society [4] . However, because data on excess mortality are provisionally released, reported counts are subject to reporting delays.

Depending on seasonal benchmark, 287 957–306 267 excess deaths occurred through September 2020: 179 903 (58.7%–62.5%) attributed to COVID-19; 44 022–49 311 (15.2%–16.1%) to other reported causes; 64 032–77 054 (22.2%–25.2%) unexplained (unspecified or unreported cause).

Depending on seasonal benchmark, 287 957-306 267 excess deaths occurred through September 2020: 179 903 (58.7%-62.5%) attributed to COVID-19; 44 022-49 311 (15.2%-16.1%) to other reported causes; 64 032-77 054 (22.2%-25.2%) unexplained (unspecified or unreported cause).

This study updates an analysis of US mortality in 2020, including deaths due to COVID-19 as well as all other causes.

A study being prepared by researchers at the School of Public Health and their colleagues finds that the largest undercounts are in counties that supported former president Donald Trump, who admitted he deliberately downplayed the virus. … The finding could reflect political bias that leads elected county coroners to lowball COVID deaths, says lead researcher Andrew Stokes, assistant professor of global health.

As cases ballooned in August, however, the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported death data to the CDC, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline, an analysis of Florida data by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald found.

New evidence shows Trump appointees’ political interference with CDC weekly Covid data reports, House subcommittee says

Allegations the Florida Department of Health fired an employee because she objected to manipulating coronavirus data were “unsubstantiated,” according to a state inspector general report.

Florida’s Department of Health changed the way COVID-19 deaths are counted in the state as the delta variant was spreading, which led to an “artificial decline” in deaths.

A quiet change to how the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicly reports Covid death details underscores the need for the agency to communicate clearly and transparently about rapidly evolving science, experts say.