CRISIS/PUERTO RICO: “Facing mounting evidence that Puerto Rico has vastly undercounted the number of people who died because of Hurricane Maria, Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló ordered on Monday [12-18-17] that every death on the island since the calamitous storm be reviewed….
The governor acknowledged on Monday that the death toll ‘may be higher than the official count certified to date’ — an apparent about-face for his administration, which has spent months stubbornly defending its counting method, even as it became obvious that it did not reflect the unusually high death rate in Puerto Rico after the storm.
Several news organizations, including The New York Times, conducted independent analyses and found that the number of deaths traceable to the storm was probably far higher than the official count of 64…
Methods for counting storm deaths vary by state and locality. In some places, officials include only direct deaths, such as people who drown in storm floodwaters. Puerto Rico’s method is not that restrictive; the medical examiner includes some deaths indirectly caused by a storm, such as suicides.
The leading causes of death on the island in September were diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, Puerto Rican government data show. But there was a sharp spike — by 50 percent — in the number of recorded deaths from sepsis, a complication of severe infection that can be tied to delayed medical care or poor living conditions.”
-Patricia Mazzei, “Puerto Rico Orders Review and Recount of Hurricane Deaths,” The New York Times online, Dec. 18, 2017