Weekly Deaths

Chart 1

Explanation

Each week in the active time period (2020–2023) is compared to the mean and standard deviation of the equivalent weeks in the historical time period (2014–2019) , as defined by the CDC's MMWR Week. For example, the first week of 2020 (week ending 2020-01-04) is compared to the # of deaths in the weeks ending 2014-01-04, 2015-01-10, 2016-01-09, 2017-01-07, 2018-01-06, 2019-01-05. Then the first week of 2021 (week ending 2021-01-09) is compared to those same baseline weeks.

Note that the number of deaths appears to fall off extremely sharply in the most recent weeks. This is because it takes some time for the CDC to finish collecting the data. The most recent data included in the charts is from CDC datasets published on 2023-08-10.

Chart 2

Explanation

This second chart shows the Z-Score for each week in the active time period. Using the same comparisons from the first chart, each week is shown as the number of standard deviations away from the historical mean. Note that 99.7% of normal data should be within 3 standard deviations (-3 < Z-Score < 3). Anything more than 3 standard deviations is data that is far outside the norm. (Though for small populations states, there may not be enough data to smooth out noise.)