US States Under Reporting Coronavirus

June 12, 2020
2 min read

It has been suggested that some states in the US under report the number of coronavirus or COVID-19 cases. We notice this may also be the case for the number of deaths.

Our foundation develops tools that can show what is happening, independent of tests or other types of reporting. We look at a basic health parameter: mortality. Normally, mortality moves between ranges during the year and does not show excessive jumps. The coronavirus generated a large spike in mortality, above the normal. This is called Excess Mortality.

When comparing the excess mortality statistics generated by our tools with the reported coronavirus deaths, we see some interesting differences. These differences would be hard to dismiss as a statistical anomaly or fluke.

For Arizona, we find that the excess mortality is 3 times as high as the coronavirus reported deaths. Texas and Florida are more than double, while Virginia has just above twice as many deaths as reported in the coronavirus statistics.

State	Reported COVID deaths	Excess mortality	Difference %
Arizona	1135	3351	99%
Texas	1912	5078	91%
Florida	2848	6944	84%
Virginia	1520	2955	64%

Table: Coronavirus reported deaths vs excess mortality on Friday June 12 2020.

Only states with larger than 50% differences and statistically relevant sample sizes are included in the table.

Assuming that there is no other large epidemic ravaging these states, the differences between these numbers cannot reasonably be explained. We are finding that for most states the reported coronavirus deaths do match up with the excess mortality and are reasonably accurate.

We meanwhile know that our data is an acceptable representation of reality from the issue Chile was having. Deaths reported by Chile in internal documents were double the numbers communicated publicly. Our excess mortality statistics reflected the internal higher numbers closely. The fact that Chile had different internal numbers does not suggest anything about the reason behind the listed US states having higher excess mortality.

We invite you to check your state: WOMO – US Excess Mortality

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