COVID-19 US Update: Our Death Numbers may be completely wrong!

COVID-19 US deaths have reached almost 2000 yesterday. As per our earlier post, this figure will go up to 3000s before it starts going down.

The scary part is that even these numbers for the deaths due to Corona may not be correct. In one twitter thread, Mark Levine – Chair of New York City Council health committee – shares that not just the numbers of cases are off but also the deaths. The complete thread shared by Mark Levine is embedded at the end of the post.

“Early on in this crisis we were able to swab people who died at home, and thus got a coronavirus reading. But those days are long gone. We simply don’t have the testing capacity for the large numbers dying at home. Now only those few who had a test confirmation *before* dying are marked as victims of coronavirus on their death certificate. This almost certainly means we are undercounting the total number of victims of this pandemic.” Mark Levine, Chair of New York City Council health committee

This means two things:

1. The entire magnitude in the US of what has happened until now has been underestimated. Severely.
2. The full picture at the end of it all will be far more devastating

This is being shared in a study by disease modelers at the University of Texas at Austin as well.

The total COVID-19 deaths in the US – minus those that Mark Levine talks about have already reached close to 13,000 as of this morning.

Featured Image by Olga Lionart from Pixabay