Note: Data elements were retired from HERDS on 10/6/23 and this dataset was archived.

This dataset includes the cumulative number and percent of healthcare facility-reported fatalities for patients with lab-confirmed COVID-19 disease by reporting date and age group. This dataset does not include fatalities related to COVID-19 disease that did not occur at a hospital, nursing home, or adult care facility. The primary goal of publishing this dataset is to provide users with information about healthcare facility fatalities among patients with lab-confirmed COVID-19 disease.

The information in this dataset is also updated daily on the NYS COVID-19 Tracker at https://www.ny.gov/covid-19tracker.

The data source for this dataset is the daily COVID-19 survey through the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Health Electronic Response Data System (HERDS). Hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities are required to complete this survey daily. The information from the survey is used for statewide surveillance, planning, resource allocation, and emergency response activities. Hospitals began reporting for the HERDS COVID-19 survey in March 2020, while Nursing Homes and Adult Care Facilities began reporting in April 2020. It is important to note that fatalities related to COVID-19 disease that occurred prior to the first publication dates are also included.

The fatality numbers in this dataset are calculated by assigning age groups to each patient based on the patient age, then summing the patient fatalities within each age group, as of each reporting date. The statewide total fatality numbers are calculated by summing the number of fatalities across all age groups, by reporting date. The fatality percentages are calculated by dividing the number of fatalities in each age group by the statewide total number of fatalities, by reporting date. The fatality numbers represent the cumulative number of fatalities that have been reported as of each reporting date.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.