We have seen people across the country who are angry, frustrated and in some cases truly pissed-off about the current nationwide lockdown that has put 26 million people on unemployment and put tens of thousands of businesses on life support, if not killed them.
Part of what is driving the anger is the fact that people feel they are not getting the truth when it comes to how many people are actually succumbing to the virus. Recent events in Pennsylvania only add to the frustration.
The Washington Examiner is reporting that officials in the Keystone State are amending the number of coronavirus deaths in the state after questions were asked how they reached the number they initially reported.
The state had begun counting “probable” coronavirus deaths into its overall fatality count earlier in the week.
As a result, the number of deaths grew by 276 in one day and 360 the next, which doubled the number of deaths in the state in two days, Fox News reported.
After the state’s seeming padding of the totals was found out, the Pennsylvania Department of Health then removed 200 deaths from the total.
“We realize that this category can be confusing, since it does change over time,” Health Secretary Rachel Levine said.
“At times, there are things we need to review, and potentially revisit the way the data is being analyzed,” she added. “And this is one of those times,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Coroners in the state have been complaining about the Health Department’s reluctance to seek their help in determining cause of deaths, and some have even gone on record as saying that the department’s numbers do not correspond to what they are seeing.
“There’s a discrepancy in the numbers,’ said Lycoming County Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr.
“I’m not saying there’s something going on…I’m not a conspiracy theory guy. But accuracy is important. It’s a matter of public safety.”
The Department of Health responded to the controversy on Twitter.
“Today there was a decrease in probably cases, specifically probable deaths, which impacts total case count. These cases were previously reported as probable, cut review determined that more info needed before attributing as #COVID19 related.
This doesn’t impact confirmed case count. Probably cases make up <2% of total cases + give us an idea if something is happening in an area that needs investigation.
We rely on CONFIRMED case counts to make data driven decisions. As we work to move regions from red to yellow, we use confirmed data to base decisions.”
Today there was a ⬇️ in probable cases, specifically probable deaths, which impacts total case count.
These cases were previously reported as probable, but review determined that more info needed before attributing as #COVID19 related. This doesn’t impact confirmed case count. pic.twitter.com/FwB4f05F7e
— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) April 23, 2020
It had been reported in early April by Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the coronavirus task force formed by President Trump, that the government is classifying coronavirus deaths based on whether the person is infected at the time of death regardless of underlying health conditions.
“There are other countries that if you had a preexisting conditions, and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem,” she explained. Some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death.
“The intent is….if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that,” she said.
And they wonder why people are pissed off. There is a tremendous level of distrust going on, especially where people are at risk of losing everything while bureaucrats are playing with numbers.
All across the country, states are dealing with similar inconsistencies to Pennsylvania while they attempt to determine how many people categorized as “probable” coronavirus victims there actually are.
For example, in Colorado they expect the death count related to COVID-19 to jump by more than 100 since the health department in that state is adding “probable” deaths to the official count.
As of Wednesday according to ABC-7 in Denver, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment had tallied 508 confirmed coronavirus deaths in that state.
However now the state will add the “probable” deaths, classified as one where a person died who was a resident of Colorado, who had no known positive lab test for the coronavirus but nonetheless had their cause of death listed as COVID-19 or equivalent on their death certificate. This, folks, is called fudging the numbers.
Where things really get inflated is the death “rate” of COVID-19 patients.
According to Fox News, a recent study in Santa Clara County, California found the death rate of COVID-19 is far lower than previously thought.
According to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor of medicine:
“The COVID infection is substantially more common in the population than we’d realized prior to this study.
“We figured out somewhere between 2.8 and 4 percent of Santa Clara County has had evidence of COVID infection, Bhattacharya continued, admitting that the results of the study had not yet been peer-reviewed.
“If 4 percent have evidence of infection that means that there’s about 85 times more people who’ve had it per person than actually identified having it,” he said. “And if it’s on the low end it would be 2.8 [percent] that would be 50 times [more people who’ve had coronavirus than have been identified as having it].”
While there are numerous implications, the professor said, the most significant might be that the death rate of COVID-19 may be more similar to the death rate of the flu.
“There’s some more nuance to the calculation, but the bottom line is that once you do that nuance, it’s probably about as deadly as the flu or a little bit worse case,” Bhattacharya said.
He stressed that his findings are not meant to imply that the coronavirus is not deadly, while pointing out unlike the flu, there is no vaccine, it is highly infectious and that a number of Americans have died from coronavirus-related illness.
“Instead of having a death rate of—like the World Health Organization said—three in a hundred,” he continued, “Our estimates suggest about somewhere between one and two in a thousand die from being infected,” or one to two-tenths of one percent.
The study was conducted by recruiting a sample of people in Santa Clara County using a targeted Facebook ad strategy.
Blood samples were obtained from about 3,200 people in drive-thru testing facilities…aka a representative sample. While politicians have been bloviating about “everyone” getting tested, this is absurd. Statistically, representative samples should give the answers that we are seeking.
From the blood samples, they then determined how many people in the sample had antibodies which indicated strong evidence that these individuals has been affected by the virus and had cleared it from their bodies.
The study was published on medRxiv.org, a site that post unpublished manuscripts about health sciences. The report is preliminary in nature, and not considered established information.
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