2 weeks ago on 4/26, NYC had reported 5,213 *probable* COVID-19 deaths and 11,460 *confirmed* deaths.

As of today they have 5,178 probable deaths and 14,753 confirmed deaths.

So confirmed deaths are up, but probable ones are flat/down. What's that mean? https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/master/summary.csv

It means it may take quite a bit of time to count *confirmed* COVID deaths. NYC is working through its backlog of *probable* deaths and working to confirm them. Meanwhile, more people are still dying.

Lately, as the epidemic has slowed down in NYC, it has been able to get through the backlog of probable deaths at about the same rate that new probable deaths occur. So probable deaths have remained flat, while confirmed ones grow.

The bad news: most places are *not* counting probable deaths. That means they have an undercount, often a big one, relative to the actual number of COVID-19 deaths.

Confirmed deaths is a conservative estimate. This is *not* something worth debating. The evidence is clear.

The complicated news: because it takes a long time to count deaths, some of the newly-reported deaths we see each day likely occurred some time ago. Especially if they occurred in nursing homes or private homes. States are working to count/confirm deaths they missed before.

So while it's almost certain that the peak was *worse* than the confirmed deaths # indicates, it's also possible that we've come down faster from the peak than you'd guess from looking at the day deaths are *confirmed*, which often considerably lags when they actually occurred.