COVID-19 hospital death rates go up on weekends, a new research paper has found.

Details: During the entire COVID-19 pandemic, the number of global deaths from COVID-19 was 6% higher on the weekends compared to the weekdays, according to a research paper that will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

By the numbers: Researchers found there were, on average, 449 more deaths from COVID-19 over the weekend compared to the weekdays.

  • 8,532 people died on average from COVID-19 on the weekends.
  • Meanwhile, 8,083 people died on average during the weekdays.
  • The United States had the highest change (average of 1,483 weekend COVID-19 deaths vs 1,220-weekday COVID-19 deaths), per Reuters.
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The reason: The researchers told Reuters that the increase may be due to “reporting delays, but it also is likely due to hospital staffing levels and other organizational factors.”

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Yes, but: There are some potential faults with the data. It does not account for false-negative results, missed COVID-19 cases and other data entry errors, per Medical Xpress.

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