As coronavirus deaths surged in Louisiana, more people died of other things, too, studies say

In mid-April, as the surge of coronavirus patients into New Orleans hospitals started to ease, emergency room doctor James Aiken started noticing something troubling: his hospital was getting more calls from paramedics who were finding residents dead in their homes.

Prior to COVID-19, a couple of calls like that would come in per day, said Aiken, an associate professor at LSU Health Sciences Center who also works in the ER at University Medical Center. A month and a half into the pandemic, they were getting nine or 10 daily.

"We began to wonder," said Aiken. "Were these patients who didn't want to go to the hospital because they saw it as a death zone?"

Two new studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month offer early data suggesting that Aiken's intuition was correct. Using data from across the U.S., researchers published findings that demonstrate COVID-19 deaths and a fear of seeking care for other ailments has led to many more deaths than normal.

Read more: https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/article_c0aede2a-c2ba-11ea-8667-0f8208ea354b.html