Several days ago we reported about a Florida man in his 20’s who had died from a motorcycle accident, but was subsequently placed on the state’s Covid-19 death list despite his (rather obvious) non-Covid related cause of death.
This past weekend, after scrutiny from several news outlets including Florida’s Fox 35, who broke the story, the death “was reviewed and he was taken off the list for COVID fatalities.”
The decision to take the death off the list comes just two days after Fox 35’s initial report. Fox 35 did an investigation last week where they talked to Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino about two deaths of people in their 20s that were labeled coronavirus deaths.
When they asked if the people who died had underlying conditions, Pino had responded:
“The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident.”
At the time, Pino was asked about whether or not the motorcycle victim’s data was removed from the state’s Covid system and responded by saying:
“I don’t think so. I have to double-check. We were arguing, discussing, or trying to argue with the state. Not because of the numbers — it’s 100…it doesn’t make any difference if it’s 99 — but the fact that the individual didn’t die from COVID-19…died in the crash. But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that one.”
As Fox 35 noted at the time, it seemed to stand at odds with how the Florida Department of Health explained how they were reporting Covid deaths.
The state had told Fox: “A COVID death is determined if COVID19 is listed as the immediate or underlying cause of death, or listed as one of the significant conditions contributing to death. Or, if there is a confirmed COVID-19 infection from a lab test – and the cause of death doesn’t meet exclusion criteria – like trauma, suicide, homicide, overdose, motor-vehicle accident, etc.”
You can watch Fox’s original report on the motorcycle accident here:
And, as we pointed out in our original article, for those wondering about how Covid deaths are being counted, this April interview on Fox News with Dr. Scott Jensen does a good job of explaining just some of the issues:
