On Wednesday, U.S. hospitals stopped reporting Covid-19 deaths directly to the federal government through a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services system. This is part of a global campaign to reduce reporting of Covid-19 deaths and cases. The same day that the U.S. federal government stopped collecting this data, the UK announced that it would end reporting of Covid-19 deaths by Easter.
Although the end of the reporting has hardly been mentioned by the media, health experts are shocked. HHS insists that the system duplicated the death reporting already conducted through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the CDC relies on reporting from counties, cities, and states, in a process that is slower than using data directly from hospitals, where the data was entered by medical professionals.
Now the only available measure is the counting of death certificates on a state level, passing through coroners, medical examiners, and state governments, resulting in fragmentation, different standards in different jurisdictions, and non-uniform data reporting. Coroners are not necessarily well trained, and are sometimes elected.
Another benefit of the HHS dataset is that it is available per hospital, allowing for comparisons with other metrics associated with the facility. The data is largely automated, through electronic medical record systems that created data in the format HHS requested.
Reducing the availability of data is a sign of a drive to “move on” from Covid and simply tolerate a certain ongoing level of deaths.
What is the benefit of having less data?
