The share of unreported COVID deaths across individual states and the USA as a whole is demonstrating a disturbing growth lately. Our analytical project revealed that the current US death toll from COVID is probably over 300,000 people, instead of 222,000 as reported by JHU. While in April 2020 the ratio of unreported COVID deaths to reported COVID deaths was about 39%, dropping below 15% in June and July, in August this ratio suddenly jumped to 74% (or 21,000 unreported COVID-related deaths). Aggregated over the time period March-August, the total number of additional unreported COVID-related deaths was 64,000, which should be added to 183,000 of reported COVID deaths. Thus, the real death toll from COVID across the USA for these months was 247,000 people, or 35% higher than reported. Assuming this ratio remains between 35% and 74%, current US death toll from COVID is estimated to be between 300,000 and 386,000 people.
We hope that health care decision-makers are aware of the correct COVID death numbers, so that they will be fully prepared for treating a larger number of serious COVID cases than what was previously anticipated.
Read about Megaputer’s research project and check out the interactive graphical report that displays our detailed results here: