Doctors And Nurses Say More People Are Dying Of COVID-19 In The US Than We Know

[Crunchy Frog]

Medical professionals around the US told BuzzFeed News that the official numbers of people who have died of COVID-19 are not consistent with the number of deaths they’re seeing on the front lines. In some cases, it’s a lag in reporting, caused by delays and possible breakdowns in logging positive tests and making them public. In other, more troubling, cases, medical experts told BuzzFeed News they think it’s because people are not being tested before or after they die.

In California, one ER doctor who works at multiple hospitals in a hard-hit county told BuzzFeed News, “those medical records aren't being audited by anyone at the state and local level currently and some people aren’t even testing those people who are dead.” “We just don't know. The numbers are grossly underreported. I know for a fact that we’ve had three deaths in one county where only one is listed on the website,” the doctor said.

And two of the hardest-hit areas in the nation — New York City and Los Angeles County — released guidance earlier this week encouraging doctors not to test patients unless they think the test will significantly change their course of treatment. That means that potentially more people in both places could be admitted to hospitals with severe respiratory symptoms and recover — or die — and not be registered as a coronavirus case.

Much more.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nidhiprakash/coronavirus-update-dead-covid19-doctors-hospitals?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc

[jimfields33]

1. California!!! The democratic state of the United States

Stop it! I’d think itd be Alabama doing something like this.

[onecaliberal]

2. California is not really testing.

Sad and pathetic

[BComplex]

3. This is the new USA under trump and republican rule. Nobody knows WTF is going on.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that the grifters are making a pile of money off you.

[pat_k]

4. Not a surprise.

As I've watched the problems in testing and reporting in different states, it's clear the numbers have very little to do with reality. The only numbers I would put any credence in are numbers for states like WA and CA -- and I would only give any weight to counts coming out in the past week or so. Before that, countless cases were missed, as the article points out, due to failure to test or failure in reporting/compiling data.

If you have any doubts about how fouled up things are in CA, this quote from an article in The Guardian provides some insight.

California’s patchwork response to testing has also left it struggling to keep pace with the virus, and the state is now looking to establish a coordinated approach. At least 22 state laboratories, seven hospitals and two private outfits are conducting tests in California, but it remains hazy how testing at those sites is being tracked.

“We are cobbling together various approaches,” Susan Butler-Wu, an associate professor of clinical pathology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, told the LA Times. “The whole thing is badly discombobulated ... I think 100% that the system is broken.”

[uponit7771]

5. K&R

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. Hiding facts does not make the situation better.