Death tolls of COVID-19: Where come the fallacies and ways to make them more accurate

Abstract

The death toll of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) sparked much controversy since its advent in December 2019. Underestimation because of under testing and deaths happening outside the hospitals were important causes. Bold revisions of the diagnostic criteria leading to dramatic changes in death tolls by different governments were observed in attempts to generate more accurate estimates. On the other hand, the influence, censorship and manipulation on case and death data from top political leaders of some countries could create important impacts on the death toll. Baseline mortality data of previous years may help make more accurate estimates of the actual death toll. The pitfalls and strategies during such processes could become valuable lessons to leaders and policymakers worldwide as more accurate statistics serve to navigate policies to combat this pandemic in the days and months to come.

High-Minority Nursing Homes Disproportionately Affected by COVID-19 Deaths

“…Resident health data was extracted from LTCFocus and capture some of the health issues that may lead to greatest complication due to COVID-19. Third, potential undertesting at the beginning of the pandemic may have resulted in underreported COVID-19 deaths (27). Furthermore, the COVID-19 mortality data are reported by nursing homes to the CDC, and may be subject to inaccuracies.…”

Eliciting Beliefs about COVID-19 Prevalence and Mortality: Epidemiological Models Compared with The Street

“…14 Consequently, detected cases involve over-representation of infected people who presented with morbid symptoms. Furthermore, accurate tracking of prevalence and mortality in the U.S. has been impeded by decentralized administration and politicized conflict [25] . Epidemiologists universally acknowledge that undetected cases with lower morbidity outnumber detected cases [26] .…”

International Trade of Masks and COVID‐19 Pandemic Containment

“…If you have two concurrent conditions, which classification does it fall to? [ 32 , 33 ]. On the other hand, the influence, review, and manipulation of cases and death data by the top political leaders of some countries could create important impacts on the death toll [ 33 ].…”

“…[ 32 , 33 ]. On the other hand, the influence, review, and manipulation of cases and death data by the top political leaders of some countries could create important impacts on the death toll [ 33 ]. For instance, the death toll of coronavirus in the UK is twice that of the official data [ 34 ].…”