Washington Post Opinion: Gee, We Might Have Really Overcounted Covid Deaths and Hospitalizations

This is by Leana Wen, former Planned Parenthood executive, who was among the biggest covid fear-mongers out there, before executing a face-turn to begin talking sense on the issue.

She notes that hospitals are now distinguishing between those who are in the hospital primarily for covid symptoms and those who merely have covid, but are in the hospital for other reasons.

And those in the hospital for covid are small minority of the total.

Counting anyone with covid as being in the hospital for covid hugely overpadded covid stats. And it's important to know the real stats.

Unless our officials want to continue peddling false statistics to us, for some reason.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States is experiencing around 400 covid deaths every day. At that rate, there would be nearly 150,000 deaths a year.

But are these Americans dying from covid or with covid?

Understanding this distinction is crucial to putting the continuing toll of the coronavirus into perspective. Determining how likely it is an infection will result in hospitalization or death helps people weigh their own risk. It also enables health officials to assess when vaccine effectiveness wanes and future rounds of boosters are needed.

Two infectious-disease experts I spoke with believe that the number of deaths attributed to covid is far greater than the actual number of people dying from covid. Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and the former president of Georgia's chapter of Infectious Diseases Society of America, estimates that at his hospital, 90 percent of patients diagnosed with covid are actually in the hospital for some other illness.

Emphasis added.

That doctor points out that gunshot victims who test positive for covid are still counted as "covid-related deaths" if they bleed out from the gunshots, which obviously is stupid AF.

Another doctor, Shira Doron, realized that a good proxy for determining if someone was in the hospital with covid or for covid is whether the patient is being administered the steroid dexamethasone, an anti-inflammatory given to covid patients to mitigate the low oxygen levels caused by that disease. Given that this drug is routinely given when someone is really suffering from serious, hospitalization-level covid, it's a good way to separate the "withs" from the "fors."

She says that while sometimes the fraction of patients who were in the hospital for covid reached as high as 30% of those diagnosed with covid, on many days, it fell as low as 10%.

Tracy H0eg, MD, PhD
@TracyBethHoeg

Spring 2021 [the US] had good evidence >40% of child covid admissions were incidental

2021 Denmark announced they'd distinguish with vs from covid hosp

Covid+ deaths in DK in 2022 60-70% incidental

Amazing how long it has taken the US to accept this is a problem

If that is too abbreviated, she's saying that in Denmark, they concluded in 2022 that in deaths that could be attributed to covid and another factor ("Covid+"), in 60% to 70% of the cases, covid was incidental -- it was due to the other factor.

The Brownstone Institute details how many obvious non-covid-deaths were classified as covid deaths -- are still being classified as covid deaths, in, "How to Die of Covid Accidentally."

he CDC recently confirmed over 800 "accidental" Covid-19 deaths in 2021 for people under 60. These are deaths which obviously had little to do with Covid -- but they logged them that way anyways. Here are 46 of those deaths from 2021 many just related to "falls" and others to events described.

There's a big chart showing the "covid" deaths broken down into "covid" categories, such as covid falls, covid poisonings, covid motor vehicle accidents, etc.

Here are a few. First, some of the many, many Covid-related Falls.

A 32-year-old white male died in December from an unspecified fall that resulted in an unspecified injury of the head, mental and behavioral disorders related to alcohol use, convulsions, and a kidney tumor. He also had COVID-19.

A 57-year-old white male died in November from an "other fall on the same level" that resulted in a rib fracture, injury of the liver or gallbladder, malaise and fatigue, syncope and collapse, and COVID-19.

A 56-year-old white male died in March from an unspecified fall that resulted in cardiac arrest, stroke, other intracranial injuries, COVID-19, hypertension, and diabetes. He also had mental and behavioral disorders related to tobacco use.

A 56-year-old white male died in January from a fall on and from stairs and steps that resulted in an unspecified injury of the neck, pneumonia due to food and vomit, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. He also had COVID-19.

A 58-year-old white male died in February from a fall on and from stairs and steps that resulted in an unspecified injury of the head, intracranial injury, and accidental poisoning from alcohol. He also had hypertension and COVID-19.

A 56-year-old black male died in February from an unspecified fall that resulted in an unspecified injury of the head, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, hypertension, and a surgical operation. He also had COVID-19.

It's those "falls with unspecified injury to the head" that read as especially covid-y to me.

Next, some covid-related suicides.

A 38-year-old white female died in April from suicide by intentional self-poisoning with antiallergic and antiemetic drugs, ethanol, and benzodiazepines. She also had COVID-19 and unspecified depressive and anxiety disorders.

A 31-year-old white male died in August from suicide by intentional self-harm with an unspecified means, resulting in intracranial injury. He also had COVID-19, pneumonia, and unspecified drug poisoning.

A 27-year-old white male died in January from suicide by intentional self-harm with a firearm, resulting in open wounds to the head. He also had COVID-19, severe depression, and unspecified anxiety disorder.

A 22-year-old white male died in September from suicide by handgun discharge, resulting in open wound to the head. He also had COVID-19, unspecified anxiety and depression, and unspecified mental disorder.

A 55-year-old white male died in August from suicide by firearm discharge, resulting in open wounds to the head. He also had COVID-19, unspecified depression, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.

Finally, a covid-related murder:

A 19-year-old black male died in February as a result of homicide by handgun discharge, resulting in multiple open wounds. He also had COVID-19 and unspecified infectious diseases.

posted by Ace at 03:15 PM

| Access Comments