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 A man arrives at Houston Methodist hospital emergency room on a stretcher in June. Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

More than 2,900 US healthcare workers have died in the Covid-19 pandemic since March, a far higher number than that reported by the government, according to a new analysis by the Guardian and KHN.

Healthcare worker fatalities from the coronavirus skew young, with the majority under age 60 in the cases for which there is age data. People of color were disproportionately affected, and account for over 65% of fatalities in cases in which there is race and ethnicity data. After conducting interviews with relatives and friends of about 300 victims, Guardian and KHN learned that one-third of the deaths involved concerns over inadequate PPE.

Many of the deaths – about 680 – occurred in New York and New Jersey, which were hit hard early in the pandemic. Significant numbers also died in southern and western states in the ensuing months.

The findings are part of Lost on the Frontline, a nine-month data and investigative project by KHN and the Guardian to track every healthcare worker who dies as a result of the pandemic.

One victim, Vincent DeJesus, 39, told his brother Neil that he’d be in deep trouble if he spent much time with a Covid-positive patient in the surgical mask provided to him by the Las Vegas hospital where he worked. DeJesus died 15 August.

Another fatality was Sue Williams-Ward, a 68-year-old home health aide who earned $13 an hour in Indianapolis, and bathed, dressed and fed clients without wearing any PPE, her husband said. She was intubated for six weeks before she died on 2 May.

Lost on the Frontline is prompting new government action to explore the root cause of healthcare worker deaths and take steps to better track them. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services recently asked the National Academies of Sciences for a “rapid expert consultation” on why so many healthcare workers are dying in the US, citing the Guardian and KHN count of fallen workers.

“The question is where are they becoming infected?” asked Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden’s Covid-19 advisory team and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “That is clearly a critical issue we need to answer and we don’t have that.”

The 10 December report by the national academies suggests a new federal tracking system and specially trained contact tracers who would take PPE policies and availability into consideration.

Doing so would add critical knowledge that could inform generations to come and give meaning to the lives just lost.

“Those [healthcare workers] are people who walked into places of work every day because they cared about patients, putting food on the table for families and every single one of those lives matter,” said Sue Anne Bell, a University of Michigan assistant professor of nursing and the co-author of the National Academies report.

 Healthcare workers in the ICU at Oakbend Medical Center in Richmond, Texas, on 15 July 2020. The death toll for US healthcare workers continues to mount. Photograph: Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images

The recommendations come at a fraught moment for healthcare workers, as some are getting the Covid-19 vaccine while others are fighting for their lives amid the highest levels of infection the US has seen.

The toll continues to mount. In Indianapolis, for example, 41-year-old nurse practitioner Kindra Irons died 1 December. She saw seven or eight home health patients a week while wearing full PPE, including an N95 mask and a face shield, according to her husband, Marcus Irons.

The virus destroyed her lungs so badly that six weeks on the most aggressive life support equipment, ECMO, couldn’t save her, he said.

Marcus Irons said he is now struggling to financially support their two youngest children, ages 12 and 15. “Nobody should have to go through what we’re going through,” he said.

In Massachusetts, 43-year-old Mike “Flynnie” Flynn oversaw transportation and laundry services at North Shore medical center, a hospital in Salem. He and his wife were also raising young children, ages eight, 10 and 11.

Flynn, who shone at father-daughter dances, fell ill in late November and died on 8 December. He had a heart attack at home on the couch, according to his father, Paul Flynn. A hospital spokesperson said he had full access to PPE and free testing on-site.

Since the first months of the pandemic, more than 70 reporters at the Guardian and KHN have scrutinized numerous governmental and public data sources, interviewed the bereaved and spoken with healthcare experts to build a count.

The total number includes fatalities identified by labor unions, obituaries and news outlets and in online postings by the bereaved, as well as by relatives of the deceased. The previous total announced by the Guardian and KHN was approximately 1,450 healthcare worker deaths. The new number reflects the inclusion of data reported by nursing homes and health facilities to the federal and state governments. These deaths include the facility names but not worker names. Reporters cross-checked each record to ensure fatalities did not appear in the database twice.

The tally has been widely cited by other media as well as by members of Congress.

Representative Norma Torres of California referenced the data citing the need for a pending bill that would provide compensation to the families of healthcare workers who died or sustained long-term disabilities from Covid-19.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon referenced the tally in a Senate finance committee hearing about the medical supply chain. “The fact is,” he said, “the shortages of PPE have put our doctors and nurses and caregivers in grave danger.”