NYT Publishes Misleading Fact-Check on Excess Deaths
On December 21 2023, David Zweig published a piece on his Substack, Silent Lunch, entitled “NY Times Fact Check Fail on Excess Deaths - Part II.” In the article, Zweig notes that the authors of the NYT piece employ unpublished and publicly undisclosed research to sustain their fact-check against Ron Desantis’ claim that “California had higher excess mortality than Florida.”
NYT authors Shawn Humbler and Angelo Fichera wrote “During the two-year period of 2020 and 2021, Florida saw 183 excess deaths per 100,000 people while California saw 142 excess deaths per 100,000 people, according to an analysis by Andrew Stokes, a Boston University demographer, and Yea-Hung Chen, a University of California, San Francisco epidemiologist.”
Since the research sustaining the NYT fact-check wasn’t available publicly, Zweig reached out to both the researchers and authors involved in the piece. Yea-Hung Chen was the only one to reply, confirming “the work is currently unpublished and unposted” and “related work” would be published soon.
Chen also noted he “never ever viewed such comparisons as being super meaningful relative to the discussions people are having,” explaining “the comparison of excess mortality between the two states is an interesting starting place, but. . . if somebody wants to seriously evaluate whether specific pandemic responses were effective, then I would suggest a different type of analysis.” He also disclosed the NYT authors also had not seen the data affiliated with the excess death report, and Chen did not think his analysis was unique.
Regardless if the comparison was “meaningful,” available CDC data does affirm Desantis’ original claim, showcasing California experienced greater excess deaths than Florida (See: Table 2, Table 3).
Read More:
https://www.silentlunch.net/p/ny-times-fact-check-fail-on-excess
https://www.silentlunch.net/p/sunday-roundup-12323
