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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Melody Schreiber

CDC coding error led to overcount of 72,000 Covid deaths

White flags honoring the lives lost to Covid-19 on the National Mall in Washington, in October 2021.
White flags honoring the lives lost to Covid-19 on the National Mall in Washington, in October 2021. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

A quiet change to how the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicly reports Covid death details underscores the need for the agency to communicate clearly and transparently about rapidly evolving science, experts say.

The past two years have created numerous communication challenges for the agency, which works with massive amounts of data from scores of different sources, including states and territories.

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