There’s Been a Spike in People Dying at Home in Several… — ProPublica
www.propublica.org
In recent weeks, residents outside Boston have died at home much more often than usual. In Detroit, authorities are responding to nearly four times the number of reports of dead bodies. And in New York, city officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day — a nearly sixfold increase from recent years.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had logged more than 592,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 24,000 deaths, the most in the world, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. But the official COVID-19 death count may, at least for now, be missing fatalities that are occurring outside of hospitals, data and interviews show. Cities are increasingly showing signs of Americans succumbing to the coronavirus in their own beds.
ProPublica requested death data from several major metropolitan areas. Its review provides an early look at the pandemic’s hidden toll.
Experts say it’s possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didn’t seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. It’s also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldn’t get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful they’d contract COVID-19.
Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas-Austin who’s an expert on mortality statistics, said all of those deaths are part of the “overall burden of the pandemic.” He said an uptick in deaths, specifically in ProPublica’s findings for Massachusetts and Detroit, indicates an undercount is occurring.
You should think about the official coronavirus death counts, he said, “as just the tip of the iceberg.” The quality of the deaths data will improve as testing expands and fewer people die without getting tested, he added.
The reason having accurate death statistics is important is because they help signal the location of hot spots and prompt officials to deploy resources. Knowing someone died of COVID-19 also enables health officials to alert their contacts so they can quarantine themselves.
New York City was among the first to provide data on at-home deaths. Officials said last week that roughly 200 residents were dying each day outside of hospitals and nursing homes. That’s compared with about 35 per day on average between 2013 and 2017, according to city records.
ProPublica found similar patterns beyond America’s largest and most hard-hit city. Our review examined parts of states like Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington state, drawing upon information from vital-records departments, health agencies, 911 call centers and police departments. ProPublica then compared those findings with historical deaths provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Middlesex, Massachusetts’s most populous county and home to Cambridge, Somerville and Lowell, officials reported 317 at-home deaths in March. That’s about a 20% increase from the same time period for the past three years, in which deaths ranged from 249 to 265. In late February, a Cambridge-based biotech firm hosted a conference in nearby Boston that was later reportedly linked to more than 100 infections; it’s unclear if anyone died.
Older people are particularly vulnerable to dying from COVID-19. In all of Massachusetts, deaths for people 65 and older increased by 3.6% in March from the same month, on average, during the previous three years. The comparison to 2019 was particularly dramatic, an additional 250 deaths across Massachusetts. At the same time, the data shows that increase can’t be accounted for by the official coronavirus tally alone: only 89 deaths statewide were attributed to the virus in March, according to state Health Department data.
The rise in deaths of the elderly is “a pretty dramatic change,” Hayward said, that’s “very consistent with COVID-related deaths.” (As of Monday, Massachusetts’ official COVID-related death count was more than 840.) The Massachusetts Health Department said that the data is preliminary and that there are year-to-year fluctuations.
www.propublica.org
In recent weeks, residents outside Boston have died at home much more often than usual. In Detroit, authorities are responding to nearly four times the number of reports of dead bodies. And in New York, city officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day — a nearly sixfold increase from recent years.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had logged more than 592,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 24,000 deaths, the most in the world, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. But the official COVID-19 death count may, at least for now, be missing fatalities that are occurring outside of hospitals, data and interviews show. Cities are increasingly showing signs of Americans succumbing to the coronavirus in their own beds.
ProPublica requested death data from several major metropolitan areas. Its review provides an early look at the pandemic’s hidden toll.
Experts say it’s possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didn’t seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. It’s also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldn’t get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful they’d contract COVID-19.
Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas-Austin who’s an expert on mortality statistics, said all of those deaths are part of the “overall burden of the pandemic.” He said an uptick in deaths, specifically in ProPublica’s findings for Massachusetts and Detroit, indicates an undercount is occurring.
You should think about the official coronavirus death counts, he said, “as just the tip of the iceberg.” The quality of the deaths data will improve as testing expands and fewer people die without getting tested, he added.
The reason having accurate death statistics is important is because they help signal the location of hot spots and prompt officials to deploy resources. Knowing someone died of COVID-19 also enables health officials to alert their contacts so they can quarantine themselves.
New York City was among the first to provide data on at-home deaths. Officials said last week that roughly 200 residents were dying each day outside of hospitals and nursing homes. That’s compared with about 35 per day on average between 2013 and 2017, according to city records.
ProPublica found similar patterns beyond America’s largest and most hard-hit city. Our review examined parts of states like Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington state, drawing upon information from vital-records departments, health agencies, 911 call centers and police departments. ProPublica then compared those findings with historical deaths provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Middlesex, Massachusetts’s most populous county and home to Cambridge, Somerville and Lowell, officials reported 317 at-home deaths in March. That’s about a 20% increase from the same time period for the past three years, in which deaths ranged from 249 to 265. In late February, a Cambridge-based biotech firm hosted a conference in nearby Boston that was later reportedly linked to more than 100 infections; it’s unclear if anyone died.
Older people are particularly vulnerable to dying from COVID-19. In all of Massachusetts, deaths for people 65 and older increased by 3.6% in March from the same month, on average, during the previous three years. The comparison to 2019 was particularly dramatic, an additional 250 deaths across Massachusetts. At the same time, the data shows that increase can’t be accounted for by the official coronavirus tally alone: only 89 deaths statewide were attributed to the virus in March, according to state Health Department data.
The rise in deaths of the elderly is “a pretty dramatic change,” Hayward said, that’s “very consistent with COVID-related deaths.” (As of Monday, Massachusetts’ official COVID-related death count was more than 840.) The Massachusetts Health Department said that the data is preliminary and that there are year-to-year fluctuations.
