Let's get to the bottom of this Hurricane Maria/Puerto Rico death count
Here are the key points:
1. Death counts after a disaster are important, because they fuel recovery efforts and planning for the future. The greater the death count, the more $ in Puerto Rico gets.
Here are the key points:
1. Death counts after a disaster are important, because they fuel recovery efforts and planning for the future. The greater the death count, the more $ in Puerto Rico gets.
2. Usually, the death toll of an event such as Hurricane Maria is determined through an exam by a medical examiner. But Puerto Rico officials did not have the proper resources to effectively conduct forensic examinations.
3. So they kind of guessed. Researchers from Harvard interviewed 3300 random households & found 38 deaths after the hurricane, including three from direct causes, 12 from interruption of necessary medical services.
The Harvard researchers extrapolated based on that data about the number of "excess deaths" (the number of deaths compared with the same period during the previous year) and found a 62 percent increase in the mortality rate.
Harvard provided a very wide range of Maria related deaths. "We provide a 95 percent confidence interval of 793 to 8,498, and 4,645 falls in the middle of this range."
4. Other studies were done.
University of Puerto Rico statistician Roberto Rivera, who along with colleague Wolfgang Rolke used death certificates to estimate a much lower death count, said that indirect estimates should be interpreted with care.
University of Puerto Rico statistician Roberto Rivera, who along with colleague Wolfgang Rolke used death certificates to estimate a much lower death count, said that indirect estimates should be interpreted with care.
Rivera published an analysis in February concluding that in the first six weeks after Hurricane Maria, the death count was between 605 and 1,039.
5. Other researchers have also estimated a death toll in the ballpark of 1,000, including the New York Times.
6. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada of the Pennsylvania State University was part of the team of demographers in 2017 that found that there were 1,085 added deaths.
7. The most recent & often quoted count comes from GW University (commissioned by Puerto Rico). The study released in August 2018 analyzed death certificates and other mortality data and found an estimated 2,975 excess deaths between September 2017-end of February 2018.
The team compared the total number of deaths during that time to the expected number based on historical patterns and found that the number was 22 percent higher than would have been expected.
8. Bottom line: nobody really knows. All the numbers are based on guess work. Trump seems to be counting apples, what he was told when he left the island, and is using that to salute FEMA's effort. Trump bashers are using oranges, the mathematical guestimates.
