1. The official count for COVID-19 is an undercount -- possibly a considerable undercount. In most places, it misses those who died at home or in nursing homes before being diagnosed.
2. How much of an undercount. According to Bloomberg Opinion, research done in Italian village found "there had been 158 deaths in the town in 2020 so far, as opposed to 35 on average in the previous five years." Only 31 of those 158 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
3. We won't get an accurate count till after the pandemic is over, when social scientists can then try to calculate excess deaths. But talking about these unrecorded deaths is important, to give public a sense of what is happening.
4. Politically, being upfront about uncounted deaths can help guard against the premature end to the lockdown that Trump, the right-wing media, and factions of big business want. More here: thenation.com/article/politi…
