Tony Fauci's sidekick Deborah Birx stated on Tuesday at the White House press briefing that "if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death."
Here it is:
If she really means this, consider this situation: A person is tested for COVID-19 but is young and only has mild symptoms. He is told to go home and self-isolate for 14-days. The test results go on his medical record."if someone dies *with* COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death." - Dr Brix on how coronavirus cases are treated with the patient had pre-existing conditions like heart disease. pic.twitter.com/hY6blb29q4— Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 7, 2020
On the way home, he is hit by a car and rushed to the hospital in serious condition. He dies at the hospital. It appears as though Birx is stating that this would be recorded as a COVID-19 death.
It could certainly be interpreted that way. And because of the way incentives are structured at hospitals, hospital administrators would certainly want it to be counted as a COVID-19 death.
So the question becomes how many deaths are recorded as COVID-19 deaths when there are clearly other factors that would have caused the death anyway?
Remember, deaths are very heavily skewed toward the elderly with serious chronic conditions. Maybe COVID-19 pushed some such people, over life's finish line, 5 minutes earlier than it would otherwise have happened but should this really be counted as a COVID-19 death? A type of counting that is fueling the lockdown of most of the country.
-RW
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
ReplyDeleteH. L. Mencken
I've been using that same example for a week now on social media, i.e. that if we're not going to distinguish between dying WITH coronavirus and dying OF coronavirus, then we might as well chalk-up suicide and traffic-accident deaths as coronavirus deaths if those people happened to have coronavirus in their systems. It's hyperbole, and I seriously doubt our shepherds would go that far, but it is helpful in illustrating the point.
ReplyDeleteThe CDC Guidance for Certifying Deaths Due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19 reads:
ReplyDelete“In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely . . . it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed’ cause of death.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
This is interesting too:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/strange-total-us-deaths-march-2020-actually-15-average-prior-four-years/
"According to data obtained from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics Mortality Surveillance System website, total U.S. deaths for the first three weeks of March are DOWN 10% from the average of the prior four years for the same three week period.
The average for weeks 9 through 11 for the four prior years was a total of 170,555 deaths. For weeks 9 through 11 this year, the total is 153,015, meaning 17,540 fewer people died in America during the first three weeks of March than could be reasonably expected. And the gap between historic deaths and weekly deaths is widening. For week 11, just 47,655 Americans died, 8,773 and 15% fewer than the average for week 11 in the prior four years. And while data on week 12 is not complete, it is trending similar to week 11 and will likely be down by 15% (around 8,700 deaths less than expected) even though 1,919 COVID-19 deaths were reported (in week beginning 3/22).
Now after deaths for the entire month of March are reported, the results show that deaths in the US this March are 15% less than the average of the past four years!"
Less traffic accidents?
DeleteNo, nothing to do with traffic. That site is for influenza and pneumonia only, not all causes.
DeleteThis is how we got stuck with the 55mph NMSL for 20 years.
ReplyDeleteOil Crisis and a changing of how highway fatalities were counted. It made it look like the 55mph speed limit saved lives when it was due to people not having to fuel to drive a lot and changing how deaths were counted as highway fatalities.
Considering that Fauci has now lowered expected Covid19 mortality in the US to 60k and we know that that 60k number includes non-Covid19 deaths, than the actual mortality rate will be far lower than that.
ReplyDelete