CDC coding error led to overcount of 72,000 Covid deaths
Calls for agency to communicate clearly and transparently after error, corrected last week, inadvertently added deaths to tracker
A quiet change to how the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicly reports Covid death details underscores the need for the agency to communicate clearly and transparently about rapidly evolving science, experts say.
The past two years have created numerous communication challenges for the agency, which works with massive amounts of data from scores of different sources, including states and territories.
“Mistakes are inevitable because humans are fallible, but there should always be an effort promptly to explain what happened and what’s being done to prevent it from happening again,” said Tom Frieden, a former CDC director and the president and CEO of Results Save Lives.
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Last week, after reporting from the Guardian on mortality rates among children, the CDC corrected a “coding logic error” that had inadvertently added more than 72,000 Covid deaths of all ages to the data tracker, one of the most publicly accessible sources for Covid data.
The agency briefly noted the change in a footnote, although the note did not explain how the error occurred or how long it was in effect. A total of 72,277 deaths in all age groups reported across 26 states were removed from the tracker...
A footnote. π¬ 72,277 erroneous deaths were a footnote. They were embarrassed and tried to hide it.
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...the error, once discovered, was corrected last week. The CDC did not answer a question on how long the coding error was in effect.
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As the scientific evidence accumulates, adjustments and changes are inevitable and frequent. But significant changes in calculations and records need to be explained clearly, particularly in an emergency where the public is frequently attuned to data – and to unexplained changes – like this.
“The best practice, really, is to have virtually daily briefings, so that you’re updating daily about what you’re seeing and you’re answering questions daily,” Frieden said. That’s how the agency addressed past outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and H1N1, also known as swine flu.
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...the error, once discovered, was corrected last week. The CDC did not answer a question on how long the coding error was in effect.
...
As the scientific evidence accumulates, adjustments and changes are inevitable and frequent. But significant changes in calculations and records need to be explained clearly, particularly in an emergency where the public is frequently attuned to data – and to unexplained changes – like this.
“The best practice, really, is to have virtually daily briefings, so that you’re updating daily about what you’re seeing and you’re answering questions daily,” Frieden said. That’s how the agency addressed past outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and H1N1, also known as swine flu.
