New research suggests that in the United States, around 35% of excess deaths during the early phase of the pandemic were not directly caused by COVID-19.
A new study has found that in the U.S., up to 35% of excess deaths during the early phase of the pandemic may not have been directly due to COVID-19.
The research, which now appears in the journal JAMA, suggests that experts may have underestimated the pandemic’s death toll in publicly reported deaths.
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In severe cases, COVID-19 can cause pneumonia: The body’s inflammatory response overcompensates for the presence of the virus in the lungs, reducing the lungs’ ability to get oxygen into the blood.
This can, in turn, lead to organ failure or serious cardiovascular events and, ultimately, death.
However, as well as the direct effects of COVID-19 on a person’s body, the virus can also cause death by exacerbating underlying health issues; the body’s immune system is weakened while fighting off the illness.
Furthermore, the sudden emergence and rapid spread of the disease overwhelmed critical care units when the virus was at its peak, reducing the amount of care any individual patient could receive. This affected not only COVID-19 patients but all those who may have needed critical care.
Consequently, the effect of the pandemic on excess deaths — that is, the number of additional deaths beyond what experts expect of a country during a given time — may be greater than what experts have typically reported, particularly if those reports relied on deaths directly attributed to COVID-19.
This was the finding of a new study that explored the attribution of cause of death for the excess deaths in the U.S. during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study found that death toll reports attributed only 65% of the excess deaths in the U.S. to COVID-19.
Furthermore, in 14 states — including California and