I've Been Saying This Since

In March of 2020, I made a (pretty lame) attempt to use excess death rates to see the potential effects of Covid-19.

I have been suggesting that Covid mortality is under reported since May of 2020 using excess death rates.

Well, it's now in a peer reviewed paper:

Nearly 1,170,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States according to official federal counts, but multiple excess mortality studies suggest that these totals are vastly undercounted. While excess mortality provides an estimation of deaths that likely would not have occurred under normal, non-pandemic conditions, there is still little evidence into whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus contributed to these additional deaths, or whether these deaths were caused by other factors such as healthcare disruptions or socioeconomic challenges.

Now, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) provides the first concrete data showing that many of these excess deaths were indeed uncounted COVID-19 deaths.

Published in the journal PNAS, the study compared reported COVID-19 deaths to excess deaths due to non-COVID, natural causes, such as diseases and chronic illnesses, and found that increases in non-COVID excess deaths occurred at the same time or in the month prior to increases in reported COVID-19 deaths in most US counties.

Focusing on excess deaths by natural causes rather than all-cause excess death estimates provides a more accurate understanding of the true number of deaths attributable to COVID-19, as it eliminates external causes for mortality, such as intentional or unintentional injuries, for which COVID-19 would not be a contributing factor.

"Our findings show that many COVID-19 deaths went uncounted during the pandemic. Surprisingly, these undercounts persisted well beyond the initial phase of the pandemic," says study corresponding author Dr. Andrew Stokes, associate professor of global health at BUSPH, who has led numerous studies analyzing excess mortality patterns and drivers during the pandemic.

A note here, the language seems to imply that the pandemic is an artifact of the past.  It ain't.

We are still suffering from the pandemic, and just reported Covid deaths appear to be remaining over 1,000 a week.

Finally, wear your f%$#ing mask.