Covid-19 excess deaths in the United States through July 2020

Harry P Wetzler; Erica A Wetzler

Conversely, influenza is not a notifiable disease and a person dying with influenza would not necessarily be recorded as an influenza death. In the US there are concerns that COVID-19 deaths are underreported. 22, 23 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conducting analyses to better understand COVID-19 death reporting. 24 Although business closures and social distancing measures have apparently slowed the spread of the virus, economies across the world are also receding. 25, 26 In addition, medical resources are being diverted to care for COVID-19 patients. While excess deaths from these changes have yet to be quantified, they do occur. Thomas suggests that a temporary decrease in per capita Gross Domestic Product of not more than 6.4% will balance COVID-19 deaths and those due to economic slowdown. 27 A limitation of our estimates is that the IFRs are not gender-specific. Although males may have higher fatality rates, the data are not yet conclusive. 28 Moreover, we have no data on possible differences in infection rates by age or gender. Another concern is that the IHME predictions assume that social distancing (SD) measures will be maintained through the end of May 2020. Given the difficulties of implementing SD in some localities, the IHME predictions could be conservative (note that the upper 95% UI for . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.