Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts

[SouthernCal_Dem]

Source: Daily Beast

President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force are pushing officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change how the agency works with states to count coronavirus-related deaths. And they’re pushing for revisions that could lead to far fewer deaths being counted than originally reported, according to five administration officials working on the government’s response to the pandemic

Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death count, the president in recent weeks has privately raised suspicion about the number of fatalities in the United States, which recently eclipsed 80,000 recorded deaths. In talks with top officials, Trump has suggested that those numbers could have been incorrectly tallied or even inflated by current methodology, two individuals with knowledge of those private comments said.

The White House has pressed the CDC, in particular, to work with states to change how they count coronavirus deaths and report them back to the federal government, according to two officials with knowledge of those conversations. And Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the administration’s coronavirus task force, has urged CDC officials to exclude from coronavirus death count reporting some of those individuals who either do not have confirmed lab results and are presumed positive or who have the virus and may not have died as a direct result of it, according to three senior administration officials.


Officials inside the CDC, five of whom spoke to The Daily Beast, said they are pushing back against that request, claiming it could falsely skew the mortality rate at a time when state and local governments are already struggling to ensure that every person who dies as a result of the coronavirus is counted. Scientists and doctors working with the task force, including Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said the U.S. death toll count is likely higher than is being reflected in government data sets. And several local officials in hot spot areas said they’ve seen hundreds if not thousands more deaths over the last two months than in the same time period over the last several years. They presume many of those individuals contracted the coronavirus.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts?ref=home

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Kind of like how jobs reports under Obama were all wrong.

[Iliyah]

2. That is criminal . .

disrespectful to the dead and their families. Gawd I truly truly truly truly extremely dislike these people.

So called "Christians" my arse.

[gab13by13]

3. Many of the states undercounted the deaths unknowingly.

I saw yesterday where New York is saying they believe they missed 5,000 Covid-19 deaths.

Red states, and some blue, are deliberately not counting Covid-19 deaths. I know that trump wants low numbers coming out of Georgia, Florida, and Texas. That is why those states did little testing. Florida is just flat out not reporting deaths.

[ancianita]

4. How tyranny and soft terrorism works -- organized lying, secrecy, and distracting drama.

[sakabatou]

5. To Trump, it's all about poll numbers.

According to Trump, low numbers of dead equal reelection.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Get virus, die of pneumonia...

Not Covid. I see how this works even though one caused the other.

[Botany]

7. Columbus, Ohio will be the next hotspot.

Columbus, OH
Franklin County
As of Wed, May 13, 2020, 8:49 AM EDT
CONFIRMED CASES
4,002
23.6%Since last week
DEATHS
138
39.3%Since last week

[Ford_Prefect]

8. If you can't accomplish the task move the goal posts and declare victory. Typical management-think.

But never ever let it look like you didn't win. Never ever let the results show how inadequate you really are to the task.

They do NOT care how many get sick, nor how many die or are damaged along the way. They only care that it looks better for them. The entire GOP owns this one: from Congress down to the local dog-catcher. They are on board with Trump and have NO solutions to offer help with this. They are silent except to claim full credit for what the Democrats forced them to add to the stimulus bills, which they fought tooth and nail. ...And this morning they still demand that we agree it's not THAT bad. They still want a wide open economy as fast as they can force it on the rest of us.

Long ago I read a novel set in England and one line still sticks with me. A woman pub owner is asked how she feels about the Nobility and the Royal Family. She replies, "It's a mercy we haven't hung them yet." My feeling this morning towards the GOP and all their enablers could not be better said.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Watch the excess death numbers - the White House will try to suppress or confuse those next

The Daily Beast points to the New York City excess death figures:

During March 11–May 2, 2020, a total of 32,107 deaths were reported to DOHMH; of these deaths, 24,172 (95% confidence interval = 22,980–25,364) were found to be in excess of the seasonal expected baseline. Included in the 24,172 deaths were 13,831 (57%) laboratory-confirmed COVID-19–associated deaths and 5,048 (21%) probable COVID-19–associated deaths, leaving 5,293 (22%) excess deaths that were not identified as either laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19–associated deaths (Figure).

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e5.htm

For the country (it takes time for all deaths to be reported and the numbers collated, so figures could go up for later weeks):
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Week ending 28 March: 4,283 excess deaths
w/e 4 April: 12,840
w/e 11 April: 19,965
w/e 18 April: 17,470
w/e 25 April: 10,852
That's 65,838 known excess deaths to 25th April, but that last week is almost certainly incomplete. The figure published at the time was 54,256.

(The April 11 published figure was 24,062 covid-19 deaths; the tallied 3 weeks' excess death figures up to then are probably pretty complete by now, and that's 37,088. So the actual death toll runs at something like 50% more than the 'headline' figure. Which means the true toll by now for the USA is perhaps 120,000)

[machoneman]

10. Birx, I knew it! What a weasly shithead is she!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. The numbers are undercounts. Some states are undercounting by official policy. See Excess Deaths

[niyad]

12. Sooo, we can't count those who have not had test results? A shortage of tests. Days-long delays

in getting results. Patient dies before results come in. Ops, not a virus death. How utterly despicable this death cult is.

I remember a time when the CDC had integrity, and we could trust its information.

Nice way a tyrant fosters distrust in necessary institutions.

[captain jack]

13. Soon team trump will be pissing on body bags in refrigerated trucks. Victims in life and death. n/t

[KPN]

14. Sounds like the same kind of suspicions he had

the day after his inauguration when attendance estimates were reported by the National Park Service — delusional.

[cayugafalls]

15. This is an atrocity. More "virus war" crimes.

While we can see the obvious nature of these crimes, the rights 24/7 spewage of conspiracy theories and bullshit has the willfully ignorant people convinced we on the left are evil.

I am so disheartened. We have to win. We must win.

[Nitram]

16. Totally Trumpian. Don't fix the problem. Change the stats and make it go away.

[patphil]

17. It does look like the numbers from some states are not realistic.

Texas, for instance, has a low number of cases as compared to their population, and only about 2.4% death rate.
But then, they are one of the lowest states in terms of number of tests per 1 million residents, as per worldometers.
If you don't test, you don't know, and if the virus isn't confirmed in the person who dies, then it isn't counted.

This gives the people of Texas a false sense of the extent of the pandemic in their state, and fuels their belief that it's okay to open up the state.
It's fundamentally unethical, and will cause a lot more people in Texas to die from the virus.

This is happening in several states, most run by Republicans. What we have here is deliberate action that will probably kill or injure hundreds of thousands of people over the course of the pandemic.

All for the sake of profit, and the reelection of Trump and other ethically challenged Republicans, which, sad to say, is most of the lot.
Once again we are being shown that a fetus is more important to a Republican than an actual post-womb person.

[NickB79]

18. Remember how he downplayed the deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria?

That was just a test run.