PUERTO RICO
data from Puerto Rico’s vital statistics bureau indicates a significantly higher death toll after the hurricane than the government there has acknowledged.
The Times’ analysis found that in the 42 days after Hurricane Maria made landfall Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, 1,052 more people than usual died across the island. The analysis compared the number of deaths for each day in 2017 with the average of the number of deaths for the same days in 2015 and 2016.
Officially, just 62 people died as a result of the storm that ravaged the island with nearly 150 mph winds, cutting off power to 3.4 million Puerto Ricans. The last four fatalities were added to the death toll Dec. 2.
“Before the hurricane, I had an average of 82 deaths daily. Now I have an average of 118 deaths daily,” Wanda Llovet, director of the Demographic Registry in Puerto Rico, said in a mid-November interview.
The deadliest day was Sept. 25. It was over 90 degrees, and power was out on most of the island, even in most hospitals. Bedridden people were having trouble getting medical treatment, and dialysis clinics were operating with generators and limiting treatment hours. People on respirators lacked electricity to power the machines.
On that day, 135 people died in Puerto Rico. By comparison, 75 people died on that day in 2016 and 60 died in 2015.
Records from Puerto Rico’s government show that some of the leading causes of death in September were diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, although the causes of death are still pending for 313 of the September deaths. The number of diabetes deaths was 24 percent higher than it was last year — and 39 percent higher than it was in 2015.
But the highest surge was in deaths from sepsis — a complication of severe infection — which jumped 50 percent over last year. That change could be explained by delayed medical treatment or poor conditions in homes and hospitals.
Pneumonia and emphysema deaths also saw spikes.