This investigation was conducted by the Documenting COVID-19 Project at Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock in collaboration with Boston University’s School of Global Public Health; the USA TODAY Network; the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; and Willamette Week in Portland.
It’s not always easy to identify a COVID-19 death.
If one dies at home, if they have symptoms not typically associated with the disease or if they die when local health systems are overwhelmed, their death certificate might say “heart disease” or “natural causes” when COVID-19 is, in fact, at fault.
