For months, interviews with funeral home directors and morgues have cast doubt on the accuracy of the official death count in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. The New York Times weighed in with a new data analysis on Friday. The newspaper said it reviewed the daily mortality data from the Demographic Registry of Puerto Rico and found that 1,052 more people than usual died on the island during the 42 days after the hurricane devastated the U.S. territory on Sept. 20. The Puerto Rican government’s official death count stands at 62. The Times said it calculated the figure by comparing the number of deaths for each day in 2017 with the average number of deaths on the same day in 2015 and 2016.

Source: Huffington Post December 09, 2017 00:56 UTC