Spike In At-Home Deaths In Detroit Suggests Covid Toll Higher Than Reported

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/24977/spike_in_at-home_deaths_in_detroit_suggests_covid_toll_higher_than_reported

April 14, 2020, 10:13 PM
This story first appeared in investigative news outlet ProPublica.

By Jack Gillum, Lisa Song and Jeff Kao

In recent weeks, residents outside Boston have died at home much more often than usual. In Detroit, authorities are responding to nearly four times the number of reports of dead bodies. And in New York, city officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day — a nearly sixfold increase from recent years.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had logged more than 592,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 24,000 deaths, the most in the world, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. But the official COVID-19 death count may, at least for now, be missing fatalities that are occurring outside of hospitals, data and interviews show. Cities are increasingly showing signs of Americans succumbing to the coronavirus in their own beds.

ProPublica requested death data from several major metropolitan areas. Its review provides an early look at the pandemic’s hidden toll.

Experts say it’s possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didn’t seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. It’s also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldn’t get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful they’d contract Covid-19.

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[beachbumbob]

1. spike in "at home deaths" everywhere for a few months

[struggle4progress]

2. It's misleading just to count "COVID" deaths: there will be a much larger death toll,

associated with the COVID crisis: of course, there will be actual but undiagnosed deaths from COVID, which remain uncounted, because the deceased were never tested; but there will also be people who are weakened by exposure to COVID but who actually die of other infections; there will be people who lose access to essential health care due to unemployment; there will be people who cannot get necessary medical appointments due to sudden heavy demands on the health care system; there will be people who are stressed to the breaking point by isolation and commit suicide or die of drug overdoses; and so on

[Hortensis]

3. Biden has a plan of action, and I'm horribly afraid real action may wait

until January. IF we get both houses of congress, action could start when congress is sworn in on January 3. Trump and his corrupt gang won't be out, and Biden in, until January 20. But I'm pretty sure Schumer and Pelosi could make Trump the kind of offers he can't refuse that McConnell and McCarthy notably have not.

If we have a summer lull, that'll help medically but likely be used by Republicans to excuse both inaction and dangerous action. Biden's plan is emphatically NOT what the Republicans obviously intend: to deny relief and push people back into dangerous workplaces. Even if they mostly got away with it temporarily, with a relative drop in deaths, an autumn flare not properly managed (and who thinks it would be?) could throw the nation back into extreme crisis.

Joe Biden: My Plan to Safely Reopen America: An effective strategy to beat the virus is the ultimate answer to how we get our economy back on track.

The plan has to start with responding effectively to the immediate medical crisis and ultimately lead to the widespread availability and administration of a vaccine. But we can’t stay home and just wait for the vaccine to arrive. As others have noted, we need to build a bridge from here to there. Here’s what our national strategy should look like.

First, we have to get the number of new cases of the disease down significantly. That means social distancing has to continue and the people on the front lines have to get the supplies and equipment they need. President Trump needs to use his full powers under the Defense Production Act to fight the disease ...

Second, there needs to be widespread, easily available and prompt testing — and a contact tracing strategy that protects privacy. ... clear that we are far from achieving this goal.

We should be running multiple times the number of diagnostic tests we’re performing right now. And we should be ready to scale up a second form of testing: rapid serology tests to tell who has already been infected with the coronavirus and has antibodies. This isn’t rocket science...the “original sin” in its failed response — the failure to test.

Third, we have to make sure that our hospitals and health care system are ready for flare-ups of the disease that may occur when economic activity expands again. Reopening the right way will still not be completely safe. Public health officials will need to conduct effective disease surveillance. Hospitals need to have the staff and equipment necessary to handle any local outbreaks, and we need an improved federal system to get help to these places as needed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/joe-biden-coronavirus-reopen-america.html

Expressed in basic terms but very complex in operation. And we'll remain in big trouble until we do what we have to. Astonishing that the Republicans are refusing. But they are.

[uponit7771]

4. Hmmmm, looks like this thread and this fact (link) are connected. Of course the "curve" is flattened

... if there's no testing

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213290008