Trump is pressuring the CDC to change its death-toll methodology and produce a lower figure, report

[RandySF]

President Donald Trump and members of the White House's coronavirus task force have put pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to alter how it counts virus deaths, the Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.

The outlet cited five unnamed administration officials working on the government's coronavirus response as saying that Trump was pushing for a new methodology that could lead to a lower US death toll.

Sources told the Daily Beast that Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force's response coordinator, had urged the CDC to exclude two categories of people from its death count: people who were presumed to have the virus but didn't have confirmed test results, and people who did have the virus but may not have died from it.

The US had reported more than 82,300 coronavirus deaths as of Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The CDC counts coronavirus deaths by tallying data from local health departments and data from a death-certificate digital coding system, according to the Daily Beast.




https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pressuring-cdc-change-coronavirus-toll-method-daily-beast-2020-5

[LW1977]

1. Facts are a pesky thing to his Royal Orangeness

He is ill.

[sfstaxprep]

2. Fuck You And Your Scarf Ms Birx nt

[Solly Mack]

3. Trump run out of sharpies? It's not as if he's afraid to

alter official documents.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Fuck you, scarf hag!

I knew that you couldn't be trusted!

[atreides1]

5. Like all Prostitutes

It was just a matter of time before they found a price that Birx would sell out her integrity for!

Then again, I shouldn't lower the business of Prostitution to Birx's level...

[Jim__]

6. Yea, that's the way to attack a pandemic!

If he could work just half as hard at actually trying to solve the problem rather than cover it up, we might actually make some progress.

[SoonerPride]

7. "Alternative facts" - Kellyanne Conway

Don't like the facts?

Just change them.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. *sigh*

Doctors know what to look for by now so presumed cases SHOULD rightly count. What does it mean to not count somebody who "had the virus but did not die from it?" What did they die from?

[questionseverything]

9. i guess it means if someone contracts pnemonia and dies from that

but, that would be bs because they wouldn't have contracted the pneumonia if they hadn't been in the weakened state from the virus


or the virus weakens their heart so they have a heart attack, it is still from the virus but not directly

we know now the virus damages most of the main organs

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. Exactly

This sort of stuff is extremely infuriating

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

10. The real number of deaths is higher, not lower

As usual, Trump and the repugs are doing everything they can to hide the truth from the American people.

[KewlKat]

11. Who didn't see this coming from the revisionists.

Wish I could wave a wand and the whole crooked trump admin would disappear. So much winning.