“The United States reported more deaths from COVID-19 last Friday than deaths from Hurricane Katrina, more on any two recent weekdays than deaths during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more last month than deaths from flu in a bad season, and more in two years than deaths from HIV during the four decades of the AIDS epidemic. At least 953,000 Americans have died from COVID, and the true toll is likely even higher because many deaths went uncounted. COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after only heart disease and cancer, which are both catchall terms … Read More
All posts in COVID-19
“Coronavirus case numbers are in free fall; vaccines and, to a lesser degree, viral infections have built up a wall of immunity that can blunt the virus’s impact overall. Several experts stressed that certain aspects of the CDC’s new guidelines are genuinely improving on the framework the country was using before. “The timing feels right to make some kind of change,” Whitney Robinson, an epidemiologist at Duke University, told me. But protection against SARS-CoV-2 isn’t spread equally. Millions of kids under 5 are still ineligible for shots. Vaccine effectiveness declines faster in older individuals and is patchy to begin with … Read More
“The USA TODAY Network in New England and the Documenting COVID-19 project partnered to investigate how New England became a positive data anomaly in terms of COVID death reporting accuracy. Across the region, excess deaths during the pandemic are almost completely accounted for by official COVID deaths, according to our analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality data and expected death models developed by demographers at Boston University. In other parts of the country, these COVID deaths were missed or certified incorrectly as other causes. [..] Hospitals are a dominant and central data source to capture the pandemic’s … Read More
Here is this week’s refresh of the excess mortality count from the CDC (last updated December 23). The federal agency identified over 387,000 excess deaths across the country since the start of this year (about 20 thousand more than last week’s estimate). The overall excess mortality rate rose from 12.0% last week to 12.3% this week. Data from CDC’s National Center of Health Statistics, updated December 23, 2020
Here is this week’s refresh of the excess mortality count from the CDC (last updated December 16). The federal agency identified over 367,000 excess deaths across the country since the start of this year (about 21 thousand more than last week’s estimate). The overall excess mortality rate rose from 11.6% last week to 12.0% this week. Data from CDC’s National Center of Health Statistics, updated December 16, 2020
“Studies of excess deaths in the United States, as well as analyses published by the media, have calculated the absolute excess number of deaths by using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on total deaths, by week, in 2020 compared with deaths during the same week in recent years (2014/2015 to 2019). These estimates did not account for population changes during the comparison period, although the U.S. population is in the midst of a major transition driven by aging of the Baby Boomers (that is, the 1945 to 1965 birth cohorts). Of importance, the population aged … Read More
Here is this week’s refresh of the excess mortality count from the CDC (last updated December 9). The federal agency identified over 346,000 excess deaths across the country since the start of this year (about eleven thousand more than last week’s estimate). The overall excess mortality rate rose slightly from 11.5% last week to 11.6% this week. Data from CDC’s National Center of Health Statistics, updated December 9, 2020
Here is this week’s refresh of the excess mortality count from the CDC (last updated December 2). The federal agency identified over 335,000 excess deaths across the country since the start of this year (about three thousand more than last week’s estimate). The overall excess mortality rate dropped slightly from 11.6% last week to 11.5% this week. Data from CDC’s National Center of Health Statistics, updated December 2, 2020
This week’s refresh of the excess mortality count from the CDC (last updated November 25). The federal agency identified nearly 331,000 excess deaths across the country since the start of this year (about 17,000 more than last week’s estimate). The overall excess mortality rate rose slightly from 11.3% last week to 11.6% this week. Data from CDC’s National Center of Health Statistics, updated November 25, 2020
“Hospital at home (HaH), a care model that provides acute hospital-level care in patients’ homes, has been well characterized. Controlled trials and subsequent meta-analyses have suggested the efficacy of HaH, demonstrating noninferior or even superior mortality, readmission, and length of stay outcomes compared with traditional hospitalization for heterogeneous patient populations. [..] Reasons for low adoption include misaligned or lack of financial incentives and challenges inherent in implementing a complex intervention. For example, even when home hospitalization models have been implemented in the United States in study settings or those with aligned payment incentives, low participation rates have been ubiquitous (ranging … Read More