Updated: 31 Jan 2022
Author: Marc Bevand
This repository analyzes cumulative excess deaths for each US state, excluding the first 8 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to focus on long-term excess deaths.
Long-term excess deaths are defined as deaths after 2020-04-26, roughly the second half of the first wave (Spring 2020), plus all deaths from subsequent waves.
Long-term excess deaths are an indirect result of each state’s long-term plan and measures against the pandemic.
Chart
Methodology
We take deaths reported by the US CDC (column “Observed Number” where “Type” is “Predicted (weighted)”). The US CDC weighted these figures to account for reporting delays. This affects only data from the last few weeks. In our experience, weighted vs unweighted has little impact on the chart above.
For each week since 2020-04-26 we calculate the difference between reported deaths and the average expected number of deaths from the US CDC (column “Average Expected Count”). The difference can be positive or negative.
We add up these differences to calculate the final cumulative excess deaths per capita.
States population data is from the US Census Bureau 2019 estimates.
