The leading causes of death by sex and ethnicity in New York City in since 2007. Cause of death is derived from the NYC death certificate which is issued for every death that occurs in New York City.

The New York Times is releasing a series of data files with cumulative counts of coronavirus cases in the United States, at the state and county level, over time. We are compiling this time series data from state and local governments and health departments in an attempt to provide a complete record of the ongoing outbreak.

Since the first reported coronavirus case in Washington State on Jan. 21, 2020, The Times has tracked cases of coronavirus in real time as they were identified after testing. Because of the widespread shortage of testing, however, the data is necessarily limited in the picture it presents of the outbreak.

We have used this data to power our maps and reporting tracking the outbreak, and it is now being made available to the public in response to requests from researchers, scientists and government officials who would like access to the data to better understand the outbreak.

The data begins with the first reported coronavirus case in Washington State on Jan. 21, 2020. We will publish regular updates to the data in this repository.

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 patient sex. 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 summing the patient fatalities by patient sex, as of each reporting date. The statewide total fatality numbers are calculated by summing the number of fatalities across all patient sexes, by reporting date. The fatality percentages are calculated by dividing the number of fatalities in each patient sex 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.

Updates

• Notice of data discontinuation: Since the start of the pandemic, AP has reported case and death counts from data provided by Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins University has announced that they will stop their daily data collection efforts after March 10. As Johns Hopkins stops providing data, the AP will also stop collecting daily numbers for COVID cases and deaths. The HHS and CDC now collect and visualize key metrics for the pandemic. AP advises using those resources when reporting on the pandemic going forward.

  • CDC Weekly case and death counts (national and state level)
  • CDC County level cases and deaths
  • HHS New hospital admissions
  • CDC NowCast COVID variant proportions (national and regional level)

• April 9, 2020

  • The population estimate data for New York County, NY has been updated to include all five New York City counties (Kings County, Queens County, Bronx County, Richmond County and New York County). This has been done to match the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 data, which aggregates counts for the five New York City counties to New York County.

• April 20, 2020

  • Johns Hopkins death totals in the US now include confirmed and probable deaths in accordance with CDC guidelines as of April 14. One significant result of this change was an increase of more than 3,700 deaths in the New York City count. This change will likely result in increases for death counts elsewhere as well. The AP does not alter the Johns Hopkins source data, so probable deaths are included in this dataset as well.

• April 29, 2020

  • The AP is now providing timeseries data for counts of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The raw counts are provided here unaltered, along with a population column with Census ACS-5 estimates and calculated daily case and death rates per 100,000 people. Please read the updated caveats section for more information.

• September 1st, 2020

  • Johns Hopkins is now providing counts for the five New York City counties individually.

• February 12, 2021

  • The Ohio Department of Health recently announced that as many as 4,000 COVID-19 deaths may have been underreported through the state’s reporting system, and that the "daily reported death counts will be high for a two to three-day period."
  • Because deaths data will be anomalous for consecutive days, we have chosen to freeze Ohio's rolling average for daily deaths at the last valid measure until Johns Hopkins is able to back-distribute the data. The raw daily death counts, as reported by Johns Hopkins and including the backlogged death data, will still be present in the new_deaths column.

• February 16, 2021

  - Johns Hopkins has reconciled Ohio's historical deaths data with the state.

  Overview

The AP is using data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering as our source for outbreak caseloads and death counts for the United States and globally.

The Hopkins data is available at the county level in the United States. The AP has paired this data with population figures and county rural/urban designations, and has calculated caseload and death rates per 100,000 people. Be aware that caseloads may reflect the availability of tests -- and the ability to turn around test results quickly -- rather than actual disease spread or true infection rates.

This data is from the Hopkins dashboard that is updated regularly throughout the day. Like all organizations dealing with data, Hopkins is constantly refining and cleaning up their feed, so there may be brief moments where data does not appear correctly. At this link, you’ll find the Hopkins daily data reports, and a clean version of their feed.

The AP is updating this dataset hourly at 45 minutes past the hour.

To learn more about AP's data journalism capabilities for publishers, corporations and financial institutions, go here or email kromano@ap.org.

Queries

Use AP's queries to filter the data or to join to other datasets we've made available to help cover the coronavirus pandemic

• Filter cases by state here

• Rank states by their status as current hotspots. Calculates the 7-day rolling average of new cases per capita in each state: https://data.world/associatedpress/johns-hopkins-coronavirus-case-tracker/workspace/query?queryid=481e82a4-1b2f-41c2-9ea1-d91aa4b3b1ac

• Find recent hotspots within your state by running a query to calculate the 7-day rolling average of new cases by capita in each county: https://data.world/associatedpress/johns-hopkins-coronavirus-case-tracker/workspace/query?queryid=b566f1db-3231-40fe-8099-311909b7b687&showTemplatePreview=true

• Join county-level case data to an earlier dataset released by AP on local hospital capacity here. To find out more about the hospital capacity dataset, see the full details.

• Pull the 100 counties with the highest per-capita confirmed cases here

• Rank all the counties by the highest per-capita rate of new cases in the past 7 days here. Be aware that because this ranks per-capita caseloads, very small counties may rise to the very top, so take into account raw caseload figures as well.

Interactive

The AP has designed an interactive map to track COVID-19 cases reported by Johns Hopkins.

@(https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nRyaf/15/)

Interactive Embed Code

<iframe title="USA counties (2018) choropleth map Mapping COVID-19 cases by county" aria-describedby="" id="datawrapper-chart-nRyaf" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nRyaf/10/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important;" height="400"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">(function() {'use strict';window.addEventListener('message', function(event) {if (typeof event.data['datawrapper-height'] !== 'undefined') {for (var chartId in event.data['datawrapper-height']) {var iframe = document.getElementById('datawrapper-chart-' + chartId) || document.querySelector("iframe[src*='" + chartId + "']");if (!iframe) {continue;}iframe.style.height = event.data['datawrapper-height'][chartId] + 'px';}}});})();</script>

Caveats

• This data represents the number of cases and deaths reported by each state and has been collected by Johns Hopkins from a number of sources cited on their website.
• In some cases, deaths or cases of people who've crossed state lines -- either to receive treatment or because they became sick and couldn't return home while traveling -- are reported in a state they aren't currently in, because of state reporting rules.
• In some states, there are a number of cases not assigned to a specific county -- for those cases, the county name is "unassigned to a single county"
• This data should be credited to Johns Hopkins University's COVID-19 tracking project. The AP is simply making it available here for ease of use for reporters and members.
• Caseloads may reflect the availability of tests -- and the ability to turn around test results quickly -- rather than actual disease spread or true infection rates.
• Population estimates at the county level are drawn from 2014-18 5-year estimates from the American Community Survey.
• The Urban/Rural classification scheme is from the Center for Disease Control and Preventions's National Center for Health Statistics. It puts each county into one of six categories -- from Large Central Metro to Non-Core -- according to population and other characteristics. More details about the classifications can be found here.

Johns Hopkins timeseries data - Johns Hopkins pulls data regularly to update their dashboard. Once a day, around 8pm EDT, Johns Hopkins adds the counts for all areas they cover to the timeseries file. These counts are snapshots of the latest cumulative counts provided by the source on that day. This can lead to inconsistencies if a source updates their historical data for accuracy, either increasing or decreasing the latest cumulative count. - Johns Hopkins periodically edits their historical timeseries data for accuracy. They provide a file documenting all errors in their timeseries files that they have identified and fixed here

Attribution

This data should be credited to Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracking project

List of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC during the current calendar year. This is a breakdown of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC during the current calendar year. This data is manually extracted every quarter and reviewed by the Office of Management Analysis and Planning before being posted on the NYPD website. Each record represents a shooting incident in NYC and includes information about the event, the location and time of occurrence. In addition, information related to suspect and victim demographics is also included. This data can be used by the public to explore the nature of police enforcement activity. Please refer to the attached data footnotes for additional information about this dataset.

The Equine Death and Breakdown report lists horses that have broken down, been injured, or have died at New York State race tracks.

Graph and download economic data for Premature Death Rate for Onondaga County, NY (CDC20N2U036067) from 1999 to 2020 about Onondaga County, NY; Syracuse; premature; death; NY; rate; and USA.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Data in the United States

[ U.S. State-Level Data (Raw CSV) | U.S. County-Level Data (Raw CSV) ]

The New York Times is releasing a series of data files with cumulative counts of coronavirus cases in the United States, at the state and county level, over time. We are compiling this time series data from state and local governments and health departments in an attempt to provide a complete record of the ongoing outbreak.

Since late January, The Times has tracked cases of coronavirus in real-time as they were identified after testing. Because of the widespread shortage of testing, however, the data is necessarily limited in the picture it presents of the outbreak.

We have used this data to power our maps and reporting tracking the outbreak, and it is now being made available to the public in response to requests from researchers, scientists, and government officials who would like access to the data to better understand the outbreak.

The data begins with the first reported coronavirus case in Washington State on Jan. 21, 2020. We will publish regular updates to the data in this repository.

United States Data

Data on cumulative coronavirus cases and deaths can be found in two files for states and counties.

Each row of data reports cumulative counts based on our best reporting up to the moment we publish an update. We do our best to revise earlier entries in the data when we receive new information.

Both files contain FIPS codes, a standard geographic identifier, to make it easier for an analyst to combine this data with other data sets like a map file or population data.

Download all the data or clone this repository by clicking the green "Clone or download" button above.

State-Level Data

State-level data can be found in the states.csv file. (Raw CSV file here.)

date,state,fips,cases,deaths
2020-01-21,Washington,53,1,0
...

County-Level Data

County-level data can be found in the counties.csv file. (Raw CSV file here.)

date,county,state,fips,cases,deaths
2020-01-21,Snohomish,Washington,53061,1,0
...

In some cases, the geographies where cases are reported do not map to standard county boundaries. See the list of geographic exceptions for more detail on these.

Methodology and Definitions

The data is the product of dozens of journalists working across several time zones to monitor news conferences, analyze data releases and seek clarification from public officials on how they categorize cases.

It is also a response to a fragmented American public health system in which overwhelmed public servants at the state, county and territorial levels have sometimes struggled to report information accurately, consistently and speedily. On several occasions, officials have corrected information hours or days after first reporting it. At times, cases have disappeared from a local government database, or officials have moved a patient first identified in one state or county to another, often with no explanation. In those instances, which have become more common as the number of cases has grown, our team has made every effort to update the data to reflect the most current, accurate information while ensuring that every known case is counted.

When the information is available, we count patients where they are being treated, not necessarily where they live.

In most instances, the process of recording cases has been straightforward. But because of the patchwork of reporting methods for this data across more than 50 state and territorial governments and hundreds of local health departments, our journalists sometimes had to make difficult interpretations about how to count and record cases.

For those reasons, our data will in some cases not exactly match the information reported by states and counties. Those differences include these cases: When the federal government arranged flights to the United States for Americans exposed to the coronavirus in China and Japan, our team recorded those cases in the states where the patients subsequently were treated, even though local health departments generally did not. When a resident of Florida died in Los Angeles, we recorded her death as having occurred in California rather than Florida, though officials in Florida counted her case in their records. And when officials in some states reported new cases without immediately identifying where the patients were being treated, we attempted to add information about their locations later, once it became available.

• Confirmed Cases

Confirmed cases are patients who test positive for the coronavirus. We consider a case confirmed when it is reported by a federal, state, territorial or local government agency.

• Dates

For each date, we show the cumulative number of confirmed cases and deaths as reported that day in that county or state. All cases and deaths are counted on the date they are first announced.

• Counties

In some instances, we report data from multiple counties or other non-county geographies as a single county. For instance, we report a single value for New York City, comprising the cases for New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx and Richmond Counties. In these instances, the FIPS code field will be empty. (We may assign FIPS codes to these geographies in the future.) See the list of geographic exceptions.

Cities like St. Louis and Baltimore that are administered separately from an adjacent county of the same name are counted separately.

• “Unknown” Counties

Many state health departments choose to report cases separately when the patient’s county of residence is unknown or pending determination. In these instances, we record the county name as “Unknown.” As more information about these cases becomes available, the cumulative number of cases in “Unknown” counties may fluctuate.

Sometimes, cases are first reported in one county and then moved to another county. As a result, the cumulative number of cases may change for a given county.

Geographic Exceptions

• New York City

All cases for the five boroughs of New York City (New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx and Richmond counties) are assigned to a single area called New York City.

• Kansas City, Mo.

Four counties (Cass, Clay, Jackson, and Platte) overlap the municipality of Kansas City, Mo. The cases and deaths that we show for these four counties are only for the portions exclusive of Kansas City. Cases and deaths for Kansas City are reported as their line.

• Alameda, Calif.

Counts for Alameda County include cases and deaths from Berkeley and the Grand Princess cruise ship.

• Chicago

All cases and deaths for Chicago are reported as part of Cook County.

License and Attribution

In general, we are making this data publicly available for broad, noncommercial public use including by medical and public health researchers, policymakers, analysts and local news media.

If you use this data, you must attribute it to “The New York Times” in any publication. If you would like a more expanded description of the data, you could say “Data from The New York Times, based on reports from state and local health agencies.”

If you use it in an online presentation, we would appreciate it if you would link to our U.S. tracking page at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html.

If you use this data, please let us know at covid-data@nytimes.com and indicate if you would be willing to talk to a reporter about your research.

See our LICENSE for the full terms of use for this data.

This license is co-extensive with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license, and licensees should refer to that license (CC BY-NC) if they have questions about the scope of the license.

Contact Us

If you have questions about the data or licensing conditions, please contact us at:

covid-data@nytimes.com

Contributors

Mitch Smith, Karen Yourish, Sarah Almukhtar, Keith Collins, Danielle Ivory, and Amy Harmon have been leading our U.S. data collection efforts.

Data has also been compiled by Jordan Allen, Jeff Arnold, Aliza Aufrichtig, Mike Baker, Robin Berjon, Matthew Bloch, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Maddie Burakoff, Christopher Calabrese, Andrew Chavez, Robert Chiarito, Carmen Cincotti, Alastair Coote, Matt Craig, John Eligon, Tiff Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Matt Furber, Rich Harris, Lauryn Higgins, Jake Holland, Will Houp, Jon Huang, Danya Issawi, Jacob LaGesse, Hugh Mandeville, Patricia Mazzei, Allison McCann, Jesse McKinley, Miles McKinley, Sarah Mervosh, Andrea Michelson, Blacki Migliozzi, Steven Moity, Richard A. Oppel Jr., Jugal K. Patel, Nina Pavlich, Azi Paybarah, Sean Plambeck, Carrie Price, Scott Reinhard, Thomas Rivas, Michael Robles, Alison Saldanha, Alex Schwartz, Libby Seline, Shelly Seroussi, Rachel Shorey, Anjali Singhvi, Charlie Smart, Ben Smithgall, Steven Speicher, Michael Strickland, Albert Sun, Thu Trinh, Tracey Tully, Maura Turcotte, Miles Watkins, Jeremy White, Josh Williams, and Jin Wu.

Context

There's a story behind every dataset and here's your opportunity to share yours.# Coronavirus (Covid-19) Data in the United States

[ U.S. State-Level Data ([Raw

Graph and download economic data for Premature Death Rate for Albany County, NY (CDC20N2U036001) from 1999 to 2020 about Albany County, NY; Albany; premature; death; NY; rate; and USA.

This file contains COVID-19 death counts, death rates, and percent of total deaths by jurisdiction of residence. The data is grouped by different time periods including 3-month period, weekly, and total (cumulative since January 1, 2020). United States death counts and rates include the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and New York City. New York state estimates exclude New York City. Puerto Rico is included in HHS Region 2 estimates. Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1. Number of deaths reported in this file are the total number of COVID-19 deaths received and coded as of the date of analysis and may not represent all deaths that occurred in that period. Counts of deaths occurring before or after the reporting period are not included in the file. Data during recent periods are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction and cause of death. Death counts should not be compared across states. Data timeliness varies by state. Some states report deaths on a daily basis, while other states report deaths weekly or monthly. The ten (10) United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regions include the following jurisdictions. Region 1: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont; Region 2: New Jersey, New York, New York City, Puerto Rico; Region 3: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia; Region 4: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee; Region 5: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin; Region 6: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas; Region 7: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska; Region 8: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming; Region 9: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada; Region 10: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington. Rates were calculated using the population estimates for 2021, which are estimated as of July 1, 2021 based on the Blended Base produced by the US Census Bureau in lieu of the April 1, 2020 decennial population count. The Blended Base consists of the blend of Vintage 2020 postcensal population estimates, 2020 Demographic Analysis Estimates, and 2020 Census PL 94-171 Redistricting File (see https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/technical-documentation/methodology/2020-2021/methods-statement-v2021.pdf). Rates are based on deaths occurring in the specified week/month and are age-adjusted to the 2000 standard population using the direct method (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf). These rates differ from annual age-adjusted rates, typically presented in NCHS publications based on a full year of data and annualized weekly/monthly age-adjusted rates which have been adjusted to allow comparison with annual rates. Annualization rates presents deaths per year per 100,000 population that would be expected in a year if the observed period specific (weekly/monthly) rate prevailed for a full year. Sub-national death counts between 1-9 are suppressed in accordance with NCHS data confidentiality standards. Rates based on death counts less than 20 are suppressed in accordance with NCHS standards of reliability as specified in NCHS Data Presentation Standards for Proportions (available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_02/sr02_175.pdf.).

This dataset shows daily confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in New York City by date of specimen collection. Total cases has been calculated as the sum of daily confirmed and probable cases. Seven-day averages of confirmed, probable, and total cases are also included in the dataset. A person is classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case if they test positive with a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT, also known as a molecular test; e.g. a PCR test). A probable case is a person who meets the following criteria with no positive molecular test on record: a) test positive with an antigen test, b) have symptoms and an exposure to a confirmed COVID-19 case, or c) died and their cause of death is listed as COVID-19 or similar. As of June 9, 2021, people who meet the definition of a confirmed or probable COVID-19 case >90 days after a previous positive test (date of first positive test) or probable COVID-19 onset date will be counted as a new case. Prior to June 9, 2021, new cases were counted ≥365 days after the first date of specimen collection or clinical diagnosis. Any person with a residence outside of NYC is not included in counts. Data is sourced from electronic laboratory reporting from the New York State Electronic Clinical Laboratory Reporting System to the NYC Health Department. All identifying health information is excluded from the dataset.

These data are used to evaluate the overall number of confirmed and probable cases by day (seven day average) to track the trajectory of the pandemic. Cases are classified by the date that the case occurred. NYC COVID-19 data include people who live in NYC. Any person with a residence outside of NYC is not included.

The New York Times is releasing a series of data files with cumulative counts of coronavirus cases in the United States, at the state and county level, over time. We are compiling this time series data from state and local governments and health departments in an attempt to provide a complete record of the ongoing outbreak.

Since late January, The Times has tracked cases of coronavirus in real time as they were identified after testing. Because of the widespread shortage of testing, however, the data is necessarily limited in the picture it presents of the outbreak.

We have used this data to power our maps and reporting tracking the outbreak, and it is now being made available to the public in response to requests from researchers, scientists and government officials who would like access to the data to better understand the outbreak.

The data begins with the first reported coronavirus case in Washington State on Jan. 21, 2020. We will publish regular updates to the data in this repository.

United States Data

Data on cumulative coronavirus cases and deaths can be found in two files for states and counties.

Each row of data reports cumulative counts based on our best reporting up to the moment we publish an update. We do our best to revise earlier entries in the data when we receive new information.

Both files contain FIPS codes, a standard geographic identifier, to make it easier for an analyst to combine this data with other data sets like a map file or population data.

State-Level Data

State-level data can be found in the us-states.csv file.

date,state,fips,cases,deaths
2020-01-21,Washington,53,1,0
...

County-Level Data

County-level data can be found in the us-counties.csv file.

date,county,state,fips,cases,deaths
2020-01-21,Snohomish,Washington,53061,1,0
...

In some cases, the geographies where cases are reported do not map to standard county boundaries. See the list of geographic exceptions for more detail on these.

Github Repository

This dataset contains COVID-19 data for the United States of America made available by The New York Times on github at https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data

THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 8:10 PM EASTERN ON MARCH 24

OVERVIEW

2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.

In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.

A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.

The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.

One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.

About this Dataset

The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.

The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.

This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.

Using this Dataset

To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:

Mass killings by year

Mass shootings by year

To get these counts just for your state:

Filter killings by state

Definition of "mass murder"

Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.

This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”

Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.

Methodology

Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.

Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.

In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.

Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.

Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.

This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.

Contacts

Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.

Graph and download economic data for Premature Death Rate for Bronx County, NY (CDC20N2U036005) from 1999 to 2020 about Bronx County, NY; premature; death; New York; NY; rate; and USA.

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.

This dataset includes the cumulative number of healthcare facility-reported fatalities for patients with lab-confirmed COVID-19 disease by reporting date, patient county of residence, and patient fatalities that occurred based on the facility county. 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 county fatality numbers in this dataset are calculated by summing the number of fatalities by patient county of residence and reporting date, and patient fatalities that occurred based on the facility county, respectively. The statewide fatality numbers are calculated by summing the number of fatalities across all patient counties of residence, and across all facilities by county, by reporting date, respectively. The fatality numbers represent the cumulative number of fatalities that have been reported as of each reporting date.

Dataset contains information on New York City air quality surveillance data. Air pollution is one of the most important environmental threats to urban populations and while all people are exposed, pollutant emissions, levels of exposure, and population vulnerability vary across neighborhoods. Exposures to common air pollutants have been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and premature deaths. These indicators provide a perspective across time and NYC geographies to better characterize air quality and health in NYC. Data can also be explored online at the Environment and Health Data Portal: http://nyc.gov/health/environmentdata.

This file contains COVID-19 death counts and rates by month and year of death, jurisdiction of residence (U.S., HHS Region) and demographic characteristics (sex, age, race and Hispanic origin, and age/race and Hispanic origin). United States death counts and rates include the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1. Number of deaths reported in this file are the total number of COVID-19 deaths received and coded as of the date of analysis and may not represent all deaths that occurred in that period. Counts of deaths occurring before or after the reporting period are not included in the file.

Data during recent periods are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction and cause of death.

Death counts should not be compared across jurisdictions. Data timeliness varies by state. Some states report deaths on a daily basis, while other states report deaths weekly or monthly.

The ten (10) United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regions include the following jurisdictions. Region 1: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont; Region 2: New Jersey, New York; Region 3: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia; Region 4: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee; Region 5: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin; Region 6: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas; Region 7: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska; Region 8: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming; Region 9: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada; Region 10: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington.

Rates were calculated using the population estimates for 2021, which are estimated as of July 1, 2021 based on the Blended Base produced by the US Census Bureau in lieu of the April 1, 2020 decennial population count. The Blended Base consists of the blend of Vintage 2020 postcensal population estimates, 2020 Demographic Analysis Estimates, and 2020 Census PL 94-171 Redistricting File (see https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/technical-documentation/methodology/2020-2021/methods-statement-v2021.pdf).

Rate are based on deaths occurring in the specified week and are age-adjusted to the 2000 standard population using the direct method (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf). These rates differ from annual age-adjusted rates, typically presented in NCHS publications based on a full year of data and annualized weekly age-adjusted rates which have been adjusted to allow comparison with annual rates. Annualization rates presents deaths per year per 100,000 population that would be expected in a year if the observed period specific (weekly) rate prevailed for a full year.

Sub-national death counts between 1-9 are suppressed in accordance with NCHS data confidentiality standards. Rates based on death counts less than 20 are suppressed in accordance with NCHS standards of reliability as specified in NCHS Data Presentation Standards for Proportions (available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_02/sr02_175.pdf.).

Rate of deaths by age/gender (per 100,000 population) for people killed in crashes involving a driver with BAC =>0.08%, 2012, 2014. 2012 Source: Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). 2014 Source: National Highway Traffic Administration's (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2014 Annual Report File. Note: Blank cells indicate data are suppressed. Fatality rates based on fewer than 20 deaths are suppressed.

Daily count of NYC residents who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, who were hospitalized with COVID-19, and deaths among COVID-19 patients.

Note that this dataset currently pulls from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/master/case-hosp-death.csv on a daily basis.