Excess mortality in the United States in 2020: Forecasting and anomaly detection

Timothy L Wiemken; Ana Santos Rutschman; Samson Niemotka; Christopher G Prener

doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2021.03.013

Excess mortality in the United States in 2020: Forecasting and anomaly detection

Am J Infect Control. 2021 Sep;49(9):1189-1190. doi: 10.1016/j.ajic.2021.03.013. Epub 2021 Mar 24.

Authors

Timothy L Wiemken¹, Ana Santos Rutschman², Samson Niemotka³, Christopher G Prener⁴

Affiliations

¹ Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Allergy and Immunology, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA; Saint Louis University Institute for Vaccine Science and Policy Systems Infection Prevention Center, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. Electronic address: timothy.wiemken@health.slu.edu.
² Saint Louis University Institute for Vaccine Science and Policy Systems Infection Prevention Center, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA; Saint Louis University School of Law, Center for Health Law Studies, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.
³ Saint Louis University School of Law, Center for Health Law Studies, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.
⁴ Saint Louis University Institute for Vaccine Science and Policy Systems Infection Prevention Center, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA; Saint Louis University College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.

PMID: 33774102
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2021.03.013

Abstract

All-cause mortality may be better than disease-specific data for computing excess COVID-19 mortality. We documented approximately 350,000 excess deaths using a 20-year forecast of all-cause mortality compared to provisional estimates. We must develop more granular approaches to the collection of mortality data for real-time evaluation of excess deaths.

Keywords: COVID-19; Death; SARS-CoV-2; Vital statistics; surveillance.

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Forecasting*
Humans
Mortality*
United States / epidemiology