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Title: Using excess deaths and testing statistics to determine COVID-19 mortalities
Abstract Factors such as varied definitions of mortality, uncertainty in disease prevalence, and biased sampling complicate the quantification of fatality during an epidemic. Regardless of the employed fatality measure, the infected population and the number of infection-caused deaths need to be consistently estimated for comparing mortality across regions. We combine historical and current mortality data, a statistical testing model, and an SIR epidemic model, to improve estimation of mortality. We find that the average excess death across the entire US from January 2020 until February 2021 is 9 $$\%$$ % higher than the number of reported COVID-19 deaths. In some areas, such as New York City, the number of weekly deaths is about eight times higher than in previous years. Other countries such as Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, and Spain exhibit excess deaths significantly higher than their reported COVID-19 deaths. Conversely, we find statistically insignificant or even negative excess deaths for at least most of 2020 in places such as Germany, Denmark, and Norway.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1814090
PAR ID:
10240315
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
European Journal of Epidemiology
Volume:
36
Issue:
5
ISSN:
0393-2990
Page Range / eLocation ID:
545 to 558
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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