Provisional U.S. State-Level Mortality Counts for COVID-19, Pneumonia, and Influenza

Weekly provisional counts of deaths involving COVID-19, pneumonia, and influenza are reported to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) by state and week ending date. The dataset includes columns for total deaths, cause-specific deaths, and MMWR week. It is updated weekly by the NCHS, with the most recent platform update noted as March 2026.

Use Cases

• Tracking weekly mortality trends by state using the 'State', 'Week Ending Date', and 'Total Deaths' columns.
• Analyzing the contribution of specific respiratory diseases to overall mortality with the 'COVID-19 Deaths', 'Pneumonia Deaths', and 'Influenza Deaths' columns.
• Assessing excess mortality by comparing reported deaths to expected levels via the 'Percent of Expected Deaths' column.
• Studying seasonal patterns of respiratory disease mortality across years using the 'Year', 'MMWR Week', and 'Month' columns.

Strengths

• Contains detailed cause-of-death breakdowns for three major respiratory conditions.
• Provides a temporal resolution at the weekly level with 'MMWR Week' and 'Week Ending Date'.
• Includes a derived metric for public health analysis with the 'Percent of Expected Deaths' column.
• Cross-platform presence on datagov and socrata indicates established use and curation.

Limitations

• Data is provisional and subject to revision, as indicated by the description.
• Potential for geographic bias as it includes only U.S. states and Puerto Rico.
• One platform lists a last updated date in 2026, which is likely a metadata error, indicating potential staleness or data integrity issues.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) via the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

Collection Method

Deaths reported to NCHS by state.

Time Range

Weekly data from an unspecified start date; updates are ongoing.

Freshness

Platforms indicate a weekly update schedule, with the most recent recorded platform update date being 2026-03-20 (datagov), though this future date may be an error.

Geography

United States, including individual states and Puerto Rico.