Coronavirus Death Toll Believed To Be 28% Higher Than Thought

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 9: A funeral home employee loads a body to be transported a refrigerated trailer on April 9, 2020 in New York City. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that while signs show that measures taken by New Yorkers are beginning to flatten the curve, COVID-19 deaths across the state hit a daily record for the third straight day on Wednesday with 799 fatalities. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Some grim news today from one of the nation’s leading medical journals. JAMA reports on a study out of Yale that found that “official tallies of deaths due to COVID-19 underestimate the full increase in deaths associated with the pandemic in many states.”

The publication writes that “the number of deaths due to any cause increased by approximately 122,000 from March 1 to May 30, 2020, which is 28% higher than the reported number of COVID-19 deaths.”

The study found that “there were approximately 781 000 total deaths in the United States from March 1 to May 30, 2020.” That is “122,300 more deaths than would typically be expected at that time of year.” Officially though just 95,235 were attributed to COVID-19 during that time.

It’s believed that part of the problem was “the availability of COVID-19 diagnostic tests.”

This study was just done for deaths through the end of May, so it does not include the additional deaths in June. The deaths this past month were estimated to be in excess of 25,000, maybe more if you take this study into account. That would mean the death toll in the U.S. could top 150,000 now.