COVID-19 pandemic deaths appear to be higher than what is counted and reported, says new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Steven Woolf, author of the new research and director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that for every two Americans that were reported to be dying of the COVID-19 pandemic, another American is dying.

Woolf's research focused on the death statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics. NCHS is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau.

The research discovered that from March through July, there were 225, 530 "excess" deaths. This is a 20 per cent increase over the average number of deaths expected for those months.

Excess deaths point to the number of fatalities above what would be expected in a usual time. Deaths that are directly connected to COVID-19 pandemic comprise of 67 percent of those excess deaths, according to the study.

This leaves the remaining 33 percent without a clear explanation. Underreporting or misreporting of COVID-19 deaths might also be the reason behind the gap.

"The second explanation for the gap is people who did not have Covid-19, but died because of disruptions caused by the pandemic," Woolf was quoted.

Woolf said this would include someone who has chest pain, who did not call the 911, because they are afraid of getting the virus. This would then result of dying from a heart attack.

Woolf's study also looked at into the increase deaths linked to rise in substance abuse and reductions in access to medical care.

Inaccessibility to medical care also took place as many lost their health care coverage during the economic plummet brought by the pandemic.

Cost of Pandemic

A report said that the COVID-19 pandemic will cost Americans $16 trillion.

This was according to a study published in the JAMA, which was co-authored by then Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Harvard University economist David Cutler.

Summers advised former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. He was also a past president of Harvard.

The researchers came up with a with factors including an estimate for the value of human life.

The study, which Summers co-authored, is listed in the medical publication as a viewpoint. It does not appear to have been already peer-reviewed.

The authors wrote that the COVID-19 pandemic is "the greatest threat to prosperity and well-being the U.S. has encountered since the Great Depression."

Meanwhile, as the country nears to the Nov. 3 elections, COVID-19 hospitalizations were expanding once again in New York.

Texas is close to closing in to California as the state with the greatest number of cases. Six states have all reported record one-day increases in the number of new COVID-19 cases. These states are Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.

The United States nears the eight million total number of COVID-19 cases, with around 215,000 deaths.

The state of California has 859,000 cases, with 16, 591 deaths. Texas ranked second with 832,000 cases and 17,049 deaths. Florida came next with 736,000 cases and 15,411 deaths.

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