Is CDC Overstating Children’s COVID Deaths?

Author’s note: This article is summarized from various sources, and attributions are linked within.

Image of COVID case count as example of the importance of dataPhoto byBrian McGowanonUnsplash

Is Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) overstating the amount of children’s and adolescents’ deaths due to COVID? House Republicans think so and are “challenging conflicting data from the” CDC.

Three members, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and H. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), launched an investigation into the "potentially misleading and erroneous CDC data." The members suggest that the overestimation and inflation of statistics due to COVID may be “large-scale problem” as these numbers are used for public policy decision-making. They sent a letter to CDC Director Mandy Cohen, requesting data going back to 2020.

CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, reported numbers 26% higher deaths for the under 18 residents than the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). “The NVSS is maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics and captures data on all births, deaths, and fetal deaths from all causes across all 50 states. Additionally they track “separate data for Washington, D.C., New York City, and five U.S. territories.”

When the members of the committee requested the “most specific count that CDC can provide” from CDC officials in July, the agency stated that “2,292 children had died through the week ending on July 29.”

When members of the committee requested data from NVSS, “CDC officials responded in early October that the number of deaths through Sept. 27 was only 1,696, based on death certificate data.”

"The NVSS number for child COVID deaths was substantially lower than the COVID Data Tracker number, despite including an almost two-month longer time frame," McMorris Rodgers and her colleagues wrote in a letter to Cohen.

The three colleagues express concern that “the discrepancy in the response from the CDC highlights similar concerns that have been raised by other scientists who have analyzed inconsistencies in the CDC's data concerning overreporting.”

In the early times of the pandemic, Mandy Cohen, as the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services” posted on Twitter (now known as X) “Data-driven decision making first requires high-quality data."

During her time in the NCDHHS “North Carolina experienced some of the longest COVID-19 restrictions and strictest mask mandates in the country.” She “supported extended school closures, with schools not reopening for in-person learning until March 2021 under Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC).”

Those school closures “largely achieved bipartisan condemnation for their detrimental consequences for youth. Learning loss, as well as chronic absenteeism, are problems that still affect the school-aged population that analysts surmise will continue to have long-term consequences.”

In June 2023, President Joe Biden appointed Cohen as Director of the CDC. In Biden’s words, “Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations and a proven track record protecting Americans’ health and safety.”

The committee’s challenge to the CDC’s number has a different take. “’The overcounting [of child deaths] also raises questions about whether CDC used inaccurate data that led to decisions harmful to children,’ McMorris Rodgers and her colleagues wrote, probing whether the problem represents a systemic issue with CDC data."

In the request to the CDC, “the committee requested that Cohen provide all documentation related to the accuracy of the COVID Data Tracker since January 2020, as well as information regarding the CDC's plans to improve data quality.”

Th CDC has a deadline of November 7^th to reply. This article will be updated when more information is available.