Update on 2021 Dog Bites in the US not 47 fatality’s but 81  2021-macro-level-forces-report-cdc-nonprofit-dbrf-data pdf
2021 Macro-Level Forces Report: CDC Wonder Dog Bite Fatality Data Compared to Nonprofit
U.S. dog bite fatalities rose during the 2021 Covid year. Our nonprofit’s capture rate fell due to macro-level forces.

DogsBite.org – Last September, we published the 2020 Macro-Level Forces Report for U.S. dog bite fatality data. During 2020, the first Covid year, our nonprofit had a 15-victim deficit compared to CDC Wonder underlying cause of death (UCD) data, a 28% difference in the number of deaths. The victim deficit during the second pandemic year is even higher. CDC Wonder data shows there were 81 dog bite fatalities in 2021. Our nonprofit only recorded 52 deaths, a 44% difference.
81 fatal dog attacks in a single year are the most ever recorded by CDC data. This is a 69% increase from 2019 and a 131% increase from 2018.

Prior to these two pandemic years (between 2005 and 2019), the largest deficit of unreported deaths our nonprofit had compared to CDC data was 4 each for the years of 2005 and 2010. During the 2021 Covid year, there was a deficit of 29 unreported deaths. The disparity during the second year of the pandemic is greater than the first year, even though media reports only fell by 35% in 2021, compared to falling 47% in 2020 from the pre-Covid baseline year of 2019.
A regional breakdown of dog bite fatalities in 2021 shows that the South and West had the most unreported deaths. According to CDC data, 51% (41 of 81) of the victims in 2021 were ≥ 45 years old. Our nonprofit only captured 20 of these deaths, 49%. However, we already knew the 50 and older age group was underrepresented in media reports. We discussed this disparity in the 2020 discussion notes 2005-2019-dogsbite-data-compared-to-cdc-datapdf