Death tolls of COVID-19: Where come the fallacies and ways to make them more accurate

@article{Lin2020DeathTO,
  title={Death tolls of COVID-19: Where come the fallacies and ways to make them more accurate},
  author={Timothy P. H. Lin and Kelvin H. Wan and Suber S. Huang and Jost B. Jonas and David S C Hui and Dennis Shun-Chiu Lam},
  journal={Global Public Health},
  year={2020},
  volume={15},
  pages={1582 - 1587}
}
ABSTRACT The death toll of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) sparked much controversy since its advent in December 2019. Underestimation because of under testing and deaths happening outside the hospitals were important causes. Bold revisions of the diagnostic criteria leading to dramatic changes in death tolls by different governments were observed in attempts to generate more accurate estimates. On the other hand, the influence, censorship and manipulation on case and death data from… 
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8 Citations
Background Citations
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8 Citations

Improving the definition of COVID-19-related deaths
TLDR
A specific approach that has potential to improve the accuracy of COVID-19 death reports is created and linked all individuals in England who had received more than one nasal or throat swab RTPCR for SARS-CoV-2 to a mortality register that included bodies that had undergone postmortem upper respiratory track sampling for the coronavirus.
Demographic and public health characteristics explain large part of variability in COVID-19 mortality across countries.
TLDR
The number of people who will die from COVID-19 is largely given by factors that cannot be drastically changed as an immediate reaction to the pandemic and authorities should focus on modifiable variables, e.g. the number of hospital beds.
Economic Role of Population Density during Pandemics—A Comparative Analysis of Saudi Arabia and China
TLDR
If high-density Chinese regions are more susceptible to Covid-19 than low-density Saudi cities, the authors argue that Neo-Malthusian models can be used as a basis for reducing the impacts of the coronavirus disease on the economic growth in countries with low population density.
COVID-19 death: A novel method of improving its identification when a patient has multiple diagnoses
TLDR
A novel approach, termed the modified NJ model II, is expected to improve the objectivity and reproducibility of the assigned primary cause of death in a deceased who had multiple diagnoses, which may include COVID-19.
Eliciting Beliefs about COVID-19 Prevalence and Mortality: Epidemiological Models Compared with The Street
Turning Science into Fiction? Censoring Population Research in the Soviet Union, 1964–1982
Population statistics reflect a nation's quality of life and accordingly have the potential to be highly politically charged, with implications for a government's legitimacy. In the Brezhnev era…
"When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions." What Can We Learn From the Failures to Adaptively Respond to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic and the Under Preparedness of Health Systems to Manage COVID-19?
*Correspondence to: Elisabeth Paul, Email: Elisabeth.Paul@ulb.ac.be Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed…
High-Minority Nursing Homes Disproportionately Affected by COVID-19 Deaths
TLDR
From a policy perspective, nursing homes, that serve primarily minority populations, may need additional resources, such as, funding for staffing and personal protective equipment in the face of the pandemic.

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