New York : More people die at home

April 15, 2020

The New York City Department of Health estimates there have been 3,778 probable Covid-19 deaths since March 11.

New York City is struggling to get an accurate count of the number of Covid-19 fatalities as more people die at home and some likely coronavirus deaths are attributed to heart attacks and other causes, Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged Wednesday.

I want the whole truth out. Wherever the facts take us, I want the whole truth out,” de Blasio said Wednesday at a news briefing. “Absolutely, I believe there are more people who died because of Covid-19, in one way or another, because of something that happened to them related to Covid-19.”

New York City has had to prioritize coronavirus testing due to a scarcity of test kits and the supplies needed to analyze them, de Blasio has previously said.

Barbot said the city has compared “the number of deaths during that same time period in the previous year and what we find is that there are roughly 3,000 deaths above what would have been anticipated.”

Mocco said it’s possible that people are suffering strokes and staying at home out of fear of catching Covid-19 in the hospital, but they might already have the disease and it could even be a cause of the stroke. Such patients would not be tested for Covid-19 and thus could be missed by the city’s official tally.