New research from the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University finds that the number of publicly-reported deaths from COVID-19 may be underestimating the pandemic’s actual death toll. 

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that approximately 87,000 more Americans died between March 1, 2020, and April 25, 2020, than would have been expected based on historic averages. Of these, only 56,246 deaths, or 65%, were attributed to COVID-19. 

“Put simply, for every two deaths from COVID-19 that Americans hear about on the nightly news there is another extra death that is being attributed to some other cause,” said Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the VCU center. 

The pandemic is costing more lives than the COVID-19 death count would suggest, Woolf said. In 14 states, including the nation’s most populous states (California and Texas), COVID-19 explained less than half of the excess deaths.

The undercount could have multiple explanations, said Woolf. The number of publicly reported COVID-19 deaths is taken from provisional data that are often incomplete and may omit COVID-19 deaths that were misattributed to another cause. 

Additionally, some extra deaths may have less to do with the virus than the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, such as stay-at-home orders, reduced access to health care, fears of calling 911 for acute emergencies like chest pain or stroke, or psychological stresses that lead to deaths from drug overdoses or suicide. 

“States hard-hit in the first weeks of the pandemic, like New York and New Jersey, saw big spikes in deaths from other causes, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Woolf.  

“Deaths from these diseases could reflect undocumented complications of COVID-19, such as clotting disorders or inflammation caused by the virus, but they also may be unrelated to the virus and caused by disruptions and delays in care for those conditions. As the nation experiences more surges in COVID-19, doctors and public officials need to be prepared for a wave of deaths from these other causes.”

To read the full VCU study, visit: https://bit.ly/2ApvxYA

In an accompanying editorial, the editor and a deputy editor of JAMA discuss the implications of the study by Woolf and colleagues. The VCU study was released simultaneously with another study of excess deaths, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, by researchers at Yale University and the National Institutes of Health. Daniel Weinberger, who led that study, was also a co-author of the VCU study.