As coronavirus surges, Houston confronts its hidden toll: People dying at home - NBC News

I know you don’t want to go to the hospital, but I’m calling the ambulance,’” Salazar said.

“We never thought it was COVID,” Salazar said.

As coronavirus cases surge, inundating hospitals and leading to testing shortages, a rapidly growing number of Houston area residents are dying at home, according to an NBC News and ProPublica review of Houston Fire Department data.

An increasing number of these at-home deaths have been confirmed to be the result of COVID-19, Harris County medical examiner data shows.

The uptick in the number of people dying before they can even reach a hospital in Houston draws parallels to what happened in New York City in March and April, when there was a spike in the number of times firefighters responded to medical calls, only to discover that the person in need of help had already died.

These increases also echo those reported during outbreaks in Detroit and Boston, when the number of people dying at home jumped as coronavirus cases surged.

While far more people died of COVID-19 in those cities than have died so far in Houston, researchers and paramedics say that the trend of sudden at-home deaths in Texas’ largest city is concerning because it shows that the virus's toll may be deeper than what appears in official death tallies and daily hospitalization reports?

Many people who die at home are not tested for COVID-19, said Dr.

In New York City, for example, only 16 percent of the 11,475 at-home deaths between February and June have been attributed to COVID-19, according to data from the U.S.

The rise in at-home deaths may also reflect people who are afraid to go to the hospital because of COVID-19, and who die of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and other conditions not tied to the coronavirus, Faust said.

Ultimately, Faust said, public health experts trying to assess the toll from COVID will need to study how many excess deaths there are in a particular region and whether the demographics of those who died are different from what one might expect.

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said the surge in at-home deaths reflects the nature of the way COVID-19 attacks the body.

In May, among people who had died unexpectedly at home, the county medical examiner attributed just six deaths to COVID-19.

Data from the Houston Fire Department shows a 45 percent jump since February in the number of cardiac arrest calls that ended with paramedics declaring people dead upon their arrival at the scene.

Some of those found dead upon arrival had serious underlying health problems and didn’t realize they were also sick with COVID-19, Sky-Eagle said.

Sky-Eagle said she and her crewmates first noticed more people dying before paramedics arrived weeks ago, before internal data confirmed the trend?

After nearly three decades on the job, Sky-Eagle said she’s gotten used to the fact that many of the people she’s called on to help won’t survive.

“And then you put the stress of the COVID situation on top of that, where we’re left wondering, ‘Is this person dying because of COVID?’ It adds another layer of fear to the job that, day after day, starts to add up,” Sky-Eagle said, referring to the fear of contracting the virus or passing it to others.

Dario Gonzalez, deputy medical director of the New York City Fire Department, said the number of cardiac arrest calls that the department had to respond to in March and April was overwhelming.