Page 39 - Mortality Statistics News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Everywhere else in the nation. >> it seems a massive failure of the government's ability on the island to actually account for the deaths. the survey was done for $50,000. they had researchers from harvard and universities in puerto rico go around and interview households and ask them about who has died in their family, things like that. you've s you say you welcome the survey. according to researchers officials from your government refused to provide them basic data. they refused to give mortality statistics. why is that? >> well, i -- you know, i'm shocked to hear that. i signed an executive...

The government's ability on the island to actually account for the deaths. the survey was done for $50,000. they had researchers from harvard and universities in puerto rico go around and interview households and ask them about who has died in their family, things like that. you say you welcome the survey. according to researchers officials from your government refused to provide them basic data. they refused to give mortality statistics. why is that? >> well, i -- you know, i'm shocked to hear that. i signed an executive order to facilitate that information, both to the independent george was...

That's actually why george washington has taken a little longer time than expected. we expected to have a phase one analysis here by may 22nd. of course, data has been hard to come by with respect to that and what we want to do is land on the most concrete accurate numbers so we can assess what really happened. >> i know you expressed surprise and concern that officials didn't cooperate with the study. is that something you want to look into? if transparency is your stated goal, it doesn't seem transparent if officials aren't giving out basic mortality statistics. >> we need to look into if it...

Best process. the best data was not available. that's actually why george washington has taken a little longer time than expected. we expected to have a phase one analysis here by may 22nd. of course, data has been hard to come by with respect to that and what we want to do is land on the most concrete accurate numbers so we can assess what really happened. >> i know you expressed surprise and concern that officials didn't cooperate with the study. is that something you want to look into? if transparency is your stated goal, it doesn't seem transparent if officials aren't giving out basic mort...

That the puerto rican government actually does count secondary deaths. by secondary deaths, i mean that you waited all day in your house for an ambulance and you didn't make it. so that's considered attributed to the hurricane if the ambulance, for example, couldn't get there because the road was blocked or because there was no fuel. so taking into account that the puerto rican government does consider that a hurricane related death, they've been kind of -- i don't even know what the word is -- stubborn i guess is the right word. really refusing to see what was right in front of them and what ...