Vol. 6, Issue 12, Part E (2020)

Abstract
In December 2019, an outbreak of a respiratory disease associated with a purported novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was reported in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of the People's Republic of China. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19) a pandemic. COVID-19 case and death data is collected and reported by a much different criterion than all other infectious diseases and causes of death. These changes foster an environment for U.S. federal health officials and local governments to manipulate and confound the COVID-19 death rates. Is the motivation political? Governments and public health experts insist this liberal reporting provides a broad picture of how lethal the disease is, others contend that it gives license to those motivated to exaggerate death rates as part of a political effort to invoke fear in an election year. This paper frames the conflict and provides an analysis to test the notion of a political death creep. Results from two regression constructs show states that vote more democrat are assigning significantly more COVID-19 deaths, compared to the average state, controlling for population density and share of aged population.