As of today, more than 200,000 Americans have died from coronavirus since the global outbreak in January of this year. However, this number does not really tell us the whole story. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Late last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its provisional death counts for reporting period 2/1/2020 through 8/22/2020. According to the stats, the CDC said that 6% of the 153,504 US deaths are related to COVID-19 “only.”
According to the CDC, the other 94% had, on average, 2+ pre-existing conditions or causes per death. In other words, 94% of Americans who died from COVID-19 had other “types of health conditions and contributing causes” in addition to the virus. Nearly 60% of all deaths were over 75 years of age, the CDC stats showed.
Immediately after the publication, the report was met with anger and confusion. The CDC later put out a press release to clarify its earlier information saying:
“Provisional death data updated by the CDC last week shows that for six percent of COVID-19 deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause of death mentioned. The remaining 94 percent of deaths were among people with other underlying or contributing conditions but COVID-19 was still a factor in the deaths.”
However, what was missing from the CDC’s Provisional Death Counts was the number of kids and children who died “from COVID-19.” As schools reopened, parents are worried that their children would get the deadly virus if and when they return back to schools. So, having this data will allay fear and help parents make the most informed decisions.
Yesterday, the CDC updated its provisional death counts for the week ending February 1 through September 19, 2020. According to the CDC, 66 children under 15 have died from “with COVID-19″ since February. According to the CDC, these 66 children who died “with COVID-19,” on average, had two or more pre-existing conditions such as pneumonia, influenza, and others. Similar to the previous report, the data also shows that zero children 15 and under have died “from COVID-19 only.” The CDC also reported that 16,761 have died of other causes.
According to the CDC, the provisional death counts are based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for Health Statistics as of September 23, 2020.
