Spike in at-home deaths means the official coronavirus death count is “just the tip of the iceberg”

In “There’s Been a Spike in People Dying at Home in Several Cities. That Suggests Coronavirus Deaths Are Higher Than Reported” ProPublica’s Jack Gillum, Lisa Song and Jeff Kao report today on undercounts of COVID-19 deaths in Boston, Detroit, and other US locations. They write:

Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas–Austin who’s an expert on mortality statistics, said all of those deaths are part of the “overall burden of the pandemic.” He said an uptick in deaths, specifically in ProPublica’s findings for Massachusetts and Detroit, indicates an undercount is occurring.

You should think about the official coronavirus death counts, he said, “as just the tip of the iceberg.”

As another data point, New York City has been reporting about 200 deaths per day outside of hospitals and nursing homes, far above the 35-per-day average in previous years.

The ProPublica reporters say that a similar phenomenon occurs for influenza deaths, so the CDC uses a model to estimate the true death toll for influenza. The CDC plans to create a new model for COVID-19 deaths. However, for now, Hayward said:

… the undercount is going to be really high. I couldn’t give you a number. There is no good news on that front.