Does it matter if people die FROM or WITH Covid-19?
From the very onset, we might have assumed that when they reported that a person died FROM Covid-19 that the virus was actually what caused the death. I certainly did. After all, determining if a person had Covid-19 and it led to his or her death is not complicated.
A few weeks ago, the shadow of doubt over the accuracy of the number began to arise. In one anecdotal case, a child was listed as having died of COVID-19. He had the disease. That was established. However, it turned out that he died of an unfortunate accident in his home. COVID-19 had nothing to do with his demise.
That led to concern that the were lumping every death of a person afflicted with COVID-19 as a victim of the disease. This included a number of patients who were terminally ill at the time the contracted Covid-19. If a person is expected to die in a month from pancreatic cancer, for example, contract COVID-19, is it the virus that killed him or her?
Granted, in cases of such co-morbidity it is not always easy to determine what actually snuffed out the last breath of life – but we should not be assuming that COVID-19 is the culprit. Seniors in their 80s and 90s – and with advanced stages of chronic illness such as Parkinson’s Disease – could die from a fall. Was it the fall that killed them or the Parkinson?
There have been numerous reports where doctors and coroners were inclined – or advised – to list the cause of death as COVID-19 when it is at least one factor. From that, it is safe to assume that in a goodly number of COVID-19 deaths, the virus may not be the primary cause. How many, however, is highly difficult to determine.
But there is an even bigger problem with the numbers.
Not long ago, I discovered that a rather large number of deaths from COVID-19 we people who may not have even had the disease. That is because they were never tested before or after death to determine if they actually had COVID-19.
That is an issue worth pondering. We are being told that people died from COVID-19 when the doctors and the coroners have no idea if they had the disease. In those cases, it was ASSUMED that they had Covid-19. That’s right. No medical proof. Just an assumption. Would we accept it if a person was said to have died from the effects of Diabetes is the person was never diagnosed with Diabetes. Of course not.
Even at that, I assumed that the questionable reporting might have accounted for a 10 or 20 percent overcount in the number of COVID-19 deaths. But it is dangerous to assume—as we learn so often. In a sense, I was making assumptions about what the doctors and coroners were assuming.
In researching an earlier commentary, I had to go past media reports and even those statements by medical professionals. I was comparing the numbers – cases and deaths – in nursing homes in New York and Florida. I was astonished by what I found.
The government actually separates deaths of people with COVID-19 and those ASSUMED to have died from it. The assumed cases in New York were not 10 or 20 percent. It was more than 60 percent. That’s right. According to official government reports, almost two-thirds of the nursing home deaths in New York nursing homes were assumed to be from COVID-19. For sure they died from heart failure, kidney failure, cancer, a common cold or regular flu, and infection or whatever they had been diagnosed to have. Their diseases were well documented. The only thing that was never determined was the presence of the disease the doctors and coroners put on the death certificate.
It is no wonder that an authority with the resume of Dr. Deborah Birx dared to question the numbers – suggesting that the statistics relating to COVID-19 may be overstated. She got a lot of pushback from the pretend doctors in the Fourth Estate. Such revelations did not comport to their fearmongering narratives.
What if the death rate is not as high as claimed – or even much closer to the normal seasonal flu? That raises a lot of questions about the lockdowns. Suddenly the economic/health risk-to-benefit ratio takes on a much different appearance.
Yes, I only analyzed the death in nursing homes in a couple of states, but the data does strongly suggest that we need to re-evaluate the statistics on the macro level. And that is not difficult to do since the government lists the known cases with the assumed cases separately. They only get lumped together when seen through the media filter.
So, there ‘
Barking up the wrong tree by comparing Corvit-19 numbers of deaths to various other respiratory diseases. Regardless, whether Corvit-19 is more or less deadly or the same as the “common” flue, the real and core question should be “does the lockdown accomplish anything POSITIVE, pandemic wise or, does it only shift the impact along the time axis, i.e. delay a recovery due to slow building “herd immunity”,”.
Even if Corvit-19 is ten times as deadly would a lockdown change to ultimate outcome? This is the question.
Larry-Do you ever tell your readers where your “facts” are coming from? In reading your posts for a while, I have seen lots of assertions, but relatively few instances of you quoting a reputable source. While some of what you say may be true, it is far more l I kelt that there is an undercount rather than overcount, due to the fact that testing of people has been so slow to catch up with the disease. Many people who were infected with the disease in February, March and early-April were never tested due to the lack of testing. Then there is also the widely reported hiding of cases by governors such as Ron DeSantis in Florida. Florida has seen a dramatic spike in pneumonia-related cases/deaths this year compared to average, with health officials being fired because they refused to alter the death counts to reflect the actual cause of death. Don’t try to downplay the coronavirus death count, by any measure it has been awful, and though it has affected the infirm more than the healthy, there are still many instances where young, vital people are dying. Shameful! So there tis….
“… Florida has seen a dramatic spike in pneumonia-related cases/deaths this year compared to average …”?
Is pneumonia not the result of a Covit-19 infection? As I understand the virus itself does not kill anyone.
Can anyone offer some clarification?
“The only means to fight the plague is honesty.” Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)
Please research how many people died in the first 5 months of 2020 compared to 2018 and 2019. If the numbers are close to the same then what the article states is very much true and perhaps to higher degree. I have searched the internet but I am unable to find reliable stats but the ones I find show deaths are the same or lower. Please help on this.