Johns Hopkins University’s student newspaper staff retracted an article featuring a university study claiming that COVID-19 did not significantly increase the U.S. death rate.
The newspaper’s editor stated that it was brought to their attention that the article was being used to spread “dangerous inaccuracies” online.
Johns Hopkins University’s student newspaper, the News-Letter, reported on a university presentation stating that COVID-19 “had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people” and that the virus “has also not increased the total number of deaths” in comparison to historical data. However, the paper later removed the article, stating that it had been used to support “dangerous inaccuracies” on social media.
Assistant Director for the university’s Applied Economics program Genevieve Briand critically analyzed the net effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States based on historical data. Using information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Briand identified the percentages of total deaths per age category both before and after the pandemic began.