The idea that COVID-19 deaths are being exaggerated is a fringe theory at best. Virtually all mainstream opinions say exactly the opposite: that COVID-19 deaths are probably underestimated. There are literally dozens of sources I could have quoted. I'll give you these 2 and leave it at that.
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From the CDC: "Deaths due to COVID-19 may be misclassified as pneumonia or influenza deaths in the absence of positive test results ... [
www.cdc.gov] (My note: Unless a patient actually has a positive test then COVID-19 can't be listed as a cause of death, even if the attending physician thinks the patient had COVID-19. Since tests are (or at least were) in short supply many patients were simply treated as COVID-19 patients based on their symptoms. If those patients subsequently caught the flu or pneumonia then the flu or pneumonia was listed as the cause of death.)
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From Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University: “There are going to be some people who die of something else, happen to have COVID and get tested, and get counted as COVID deaths but would die anyway. It would be wrong to say that number is zero. However given current testing shortages and protocols, the number of such cases will be small.”
“A greater issue is errors in the other direction — deaths caused by COVID that are not counted as such,” he said. [
www.factcheck.org]
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Sorry - gotta add a third. [
www.washingtonpost.com]
The fast-spreading novel coronavirus is almost certainly killing Americans who are not included in the nation’s growing death toll, according to public health experts and government officials involved in the tally.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts only deaths in which the presence of the coronavirus is confirmed in a laboratory test. “We know that it is an underestimation,” agency spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said.
A widespread lack of access to testing in the early weeks of the U.S. outbreak means people with respiratory illnesses died without being counted, epidemiologists say. Even now, some people who die at home or in overburdened nursing homes are not being tested, according to funeral directors, medical examiners and nursing home representatives.
AlbaNY_Ram
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2020 08:44AM by AlbaNY_Ram.
