Measuring Deaths from COVID-19

Medical data are new to the analyses and deliberations of Federal Reserve monetary policymakers, but such data are now of primary importance to policymakers who need to understand the virus’s trajectory to assess economic conditions and address the virus’s impacts on the economy. The number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is one key metric that is often referred to, but as with other COVID metrics, it is a challenge to measure accurately. We discuss the issues involved in measuring COVID-19 deaths and argue that the change in the number of directly observed COVID-19 deaths is a reliable and timely metric for assessing the state and trajectory of the pandemic, which is critical given the current inconsistencies in testing and limitations of hospitalization data.