Headline is a lie. Just grabbed the CDC data. For the period from 2/1/2020 to 4/25/2020 the total death count is 713,386 and is 97% of expected deaths. The CDC lists expected deaths as "number of deaths received over number of deaths expected based on data from previous years."

Corrected headline would be - "US Deaths Lower than expected While Virus Ravages New York and Other Poorly Managed Jurisdictions." The NYT's has no respect for it's readers.

The only weeks showing higher values -
3/28 at 103%
4/4 at 115%
4/11 at 119% - then
4/18 at 98% shows a drop off. This and 4/25 at 45% are probably not yet up to date since records are still coming in, but, this is the CDC data.

The New York Metro area is the story. They really did something wrong.

Interesting that the CDC is coming out saying that the COVID-19 death toll is higher than reported. Kinda sounds like they're pushing for states NOT to re-open. Health is a consideration, but that should also include the health of folks who are forced by edict to remain at home, who will be stressed to ill health by worries about how to pay their rent or mortgage or feed their families. People NEED to get back to work. Businesses can make it as safe as possible for their employees. The continuation of the stay at home orders at this point, in relatively unaffected states or areas of states, is more about power than health.
Folks, there will be more cases and more deaths, as we re-open; that is to be expected. But as more people are around the virus, more can be exposed, get a mild case and then develop antibodies, thus contributing to the 'herd immunity' we hear so much about. The stay at home orders were to help SLOW the spread, not stop it.

Yep. Despite conspiracy theories, NYC is not coding everything COVID, as they have even more non-COVID deaths than usual. In the last 6 weeks they had about 29,000 deaths and expected about 9,000. If they were coding everything COVID they'd have coded 30,000 COVID deaths. Instead they coded 15,000 COVID (and 14,000 non-COVID). So that takes out THAT idea, right there.

Here's a quote from the streets:
>> Normally in New York City there are 60 EMS calls per day involving cardiac arrest, 30 of which can't be resuscitated. In mid April, there were 300 cardiac arrest calls per day, 200 of which couldn't be resuscitated. During peak, and maybe still, COVID-19 was causing more deaths in New York than all other causes of death combined. <<

Does that sound like re-labeling to you? You're simply going to have to accuse an entire city's EMS of fraud and lies. Which is very typical of wackos. When they finally come up against hard data they can't explain, tinfoil hat wackos they invoke a gigantic conspiracy theory. But the recent GIGANTIC surge of deaths of all kinds in NYC is a fact. One in 400 people have just died there in this last six weeks. If you don't like COVID-19 as a cause, YOU explain it.

If the rest of the country goes in in this next 6 months to 12 months to do as badly as NYC, and suffers 1 death in 400, that's 3/4 of a million deaths, more or less. As it would be mostly people who are retired, it would actually not affect the economy. It wouldn't even affect the hospitals if we did triage, and gave away beds of old COVID-19 people you younger people when needed.

But we don't discuss that. We have taken drastic political steps and THEREFORE must lie to ourselves about that terrible choice, and the two groups have split into A: one that says the disease itself is the end of the economy (wrong) and B: the other that says the disease is not real and is fake (wrong).

[nytimes.com]

Covid has definitely caused a spike. How big, and how accurately those deaths are reported, is the issue. Considering that Taiwan was reporting (and was IGNORED by the WHO) that China was misreporting transmission data as early as January, I'm a little skeptical of ANY data we have as of now. I think it's likely this particular strain has been in the US longer than anyone has admitted. So there will probably be unreported deaths. There will also be a much larger number of people with antibodies. Until there is much more thorough and effective testing for both antibodies and carriers, any statistics put out are at best incomplete, and likely skewed.

It's a nasty virus, no doubt. There are however a lot of questions about how many people have had the virus.

[cdc.gov]

2.2 million will DIIIIIEEEEEE.
Not so much. 70% of deaths are from 65+ y.o. 60% from 75+. Bad to be sure. Not the end of the world and NO justification for "locking down" free HEALTHY people