The US is undercounting COVID deaths, researchers say. Now they have a tool to figure out why.

The US is undercounting COVID deaths, researchers say. Now they have a tool to figure out why. COVID deaths in the United States have been undercounted, public health experts say. They're trying to figure out where and why. YahooNews

Death rates among Native, Hispanic and Black Americans still outpace pre-pandemic figures, showing the hidden toll of COVID-19 on communities of color even as vaccines have become widely available, according to data released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Consider the impact to Hispanic residents: In the first 10 months of 2021, before the typically deadly winter months, the death rate for Hispanic Americans was 17% higher than it was in all of 2019. That follows 2020, when the death rate was 40% higher than 2019.

It’s particularly bad in places like Albuquerque, New Mexico; Miami-Dade County, Florida; Jersey City, New Jersey; and New York City. All have had higher death rates for Hispanics during the pandemic than the national rate. ...

The new data, which provides cause of death information down to the county level for 2020 and January through October of this year, has more detail, more recently, on deaths during the pandemic than ever before.

Information included – such as where someone died, what other causes of death were on the death certificate or whether a body was autopsied – can point to communities where COVID-19 deaths have been undercounted.

Public health experts say the true death toll of the pandemic in the U.S. is upward of 20% higher than the official tally. That’s based on research showing that deaths attributed to COVID-19 do not account for all of the increased deaths in 2020 and 2021 when compared to prior years. Researchers call the number of deaths above a typical year “excess deaths.”

That means the number of Americans who have died from the virus could be closer to 1 million, not the roughly 793,200 deaths officially recorded as of Thursday.  ...