A little thread on death counts. 🧵

A lot of people like to argue about whether #COVID19 death counts are accurate. I get regular emails from people asking, are health depts counting motorcycle accidents as #coronavirus deaths if that person happened to be infected? etc.
As @ngusletter and I discussed in our story, how to understand #COVID19 numbers, a good rule of thumb is that it's usually better to zoom out and look at the big picture when you're trying to understand what's going on. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-understand-covid-19-numbers
How to Understand COVID-19 Numbers

Viewed in isolation or presented without context, coronavirus numbers don’t always give an accurate picture of how the pandemic is being handled. Here, ProPublica journalists Caroline Chen and Ash…

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-understand-covid-19-numbers
NYT has done some great work analyzing data on excess deaths by state. They found, nationwide, ~200,700 more people have died from Mar 15 to July 25 compared to normal, according to CDC estimates. This is dying of *anything*, not just COVID. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html
Tracking the Real Coronavirus Death Toll in the United States

A New York Times analysis of C.D.C. data shows just how many lives are being lost to the pandemic — far more than in a normal year.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html
You can see in NY & NJ, the excess deaths hit particularly hard in early on and now have dropped. Whereas in AZ & TX excess deaths in March were low, but then started to rise in the summer. Big picture, it shows that the pandemic definitely IS having an impact on deaths.
You can see in NY & NJ, the excess deaths hit particularly hard in early on and now have dropped. Whereas in AZ & TX excess deaths in March were low, but then started to rise in the summer. Big picture, it shows that the pandemic definitely IS having an impact on deaths.
You can see in NY & NJ, the excess deaths hit particularly hard in early on and now have dropped. Whereas in AZ & TX excess deaths in March were low, but then started to rise in the summer. Big picture, it shows that the pandemic definitely IS having an impact on deaths.
Of course, the #Covid19 death count is not perfectly accurate.

But for me, the *excess death* data provides a gut-check that *COVID* death counts aren't wayyyyy off base (as in, a grand hoax, as some ppl claim).
The reporters' conclusions are undeniable: "This is not a normal year."

Thanks @jshkatz @sangerkatz @DeniseDSLu for your vital work!
Also, if you're interested in #covid19 death counts, you can't not read @maggiekb1's beautiful, smart essay on this subject. The Uncounted Dead, which I learned so much from. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/

(end)
The Uncounted Dead

Why some people who likely died from COVID-19 aren’t included in the final numbers.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/
You can follow @CarolineYLChen.
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