Communicating Death and Dying in the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Abstract

This chapter seeks to expand on the research by Andrade et al. on mortality and rumor generation during Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to better understand how affected publics seek to resolve uncertainty and build resilience in times of crisis. The data on mortality and morbidity that are reported and the ways those data are communicated are important aspects of crisis communication. The chapter describes the processes and challenge of reporting disease data and what is reported. In the early stages of the pandemic, reliable disease data were limited to the number of positive cases and, as time wore on, deaths. Data on incidence, prevalence, hospitalizations, mortality, and morbidity during crises including pandemics serve several functions. The chapter also describes the functions of disease reporting and examines the reporting of COVID-19 data. Data on testing, for example, is a measure of disease prevalence and the level of community spread at a particular point in time. © 2021 John Wiley and Sons Inc.