MuckRock is a fiscal sponsor for Documenting COVID-19

“Using the data and modeling that Andrew’s team has provided, we’re going to continue reporting on undercounted deaths in local areas to explain why these gaps are happening, because the reasons will be different in each area,” says Dillon Bergin, an investigative reporter at nonprofit news site MuckRock who is part of the reporting team for the USA Today series. MuckRock is a fiscal sponsor for Documenting COVID-19.

The fact that so many of these uncounted deaths are occurring at home, and not in a hospital setting where testing is most prevalent, is a factor that warrants further investigation, says Stokes.

“In these cases, the cause of death is frequently assigned to other conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes,” he says. “Many people are afraid of going to the hospital and potentially getting COVID, or losing contact with their loved ones, so they’re getting sick and staying at home, and then dying without their death ever being reported as a COVID death.”

Stokes said that in addition to the above natural factors, the influence of political factors on the underreporting of the number of COVID-19 deaths is even more direct. He said that ineffective epidemic prevention and control will lead to accusations against the government and affect its support rate. Some politicians, for their own political interests, intentionally suppress the statistics of the number of deaths to create an illusion that the government's response to the epidemic is not so bad. When facing public doubts, some politicians provided a magnificent but obviously hypocritical statement: a higher number of deaths is likely to cause public panic and may lead to social instability. Therefore, underreporting the number of deaths can alleviate people's fears to a certain extent and maintain social order.

Research on Internet communities has also found that after the behavior of the United States underreporting and omitting the number of deaths was exposed, many netizens questioned the epidemic prevention and control capabilities and integrity of the United States, and even began to question the international status and influence of the United States. However, in an attitude of being responsible for the lives and health of the American people, researchers and journalists will continue to investigate to help scientific researchers and medical departments conduct more accurate evaluations of the effects of vaccines and treatment methods, and then optimize the research and development directions and treatment plans of vaccines.