U.S. Weekly Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 by State

Weekly provisional mortality data for U.S. states and Puerto Rico, last updated on 2025-04-21. The dataset provides estimates of excess deaths potentially related to COVID-19, calculated by comparing observed death counts to expected historical trends using Farrington surveillance algorithms. It originates from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and is published via data.cdc.gov.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in mortality by comparing Observed Number and Average Expected Count across different Weeks Ending Date.
• Identify jurisdictions with significant mortality events by filtering on State where Exceeds Threshold is true.
• Model the relationship between COVID-19 and all-cause mortality using Total Excess Estimate and Percent Excess Estimate.
• Assess data completeness and reporting lags by examining trends in Provisional counts and Suppress flags over time.

Strengths

• Includes 15 columns such as State, Week Ending Date, Observed Number, and Upper Bound Threshold for detailed analysis.
• Data is sourced from the authoritative CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).
• Methodology for calculating excess deaths using Farrington algorithms and 95% Confidence Intervals is documented.

Limitations

• The dataset was officially deprecated on September 27, 2023, and is no longer updated, limiting its use for current analysis.
• Row count and total size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.
• Provisional data for recent weeks are incomplete, with only about 60% of deaths reported within 10 days, introducing latency and potential bias.

Provenance

Source

data.cdc.gov / National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

Collection Method

Calculated from provisional death counts using Farrington surveillance algorithms to estimate expected deaths and identify excess.

Time Range

Weekly data; specific date range not provided in input.

Freshness

Last updated 2025-04-21 16:19:10, but deprecated and no longer updated as of September 2023.

Geography

United States, including individual States and Puerto Rico.