This article (linked below) spends a lot of text conveying an anecdote, however, if you ctrl-f and search for 'Other reasoning is based on data.' There's some discussion on how flu death statistics are calculated almost the same way covid 19 deaths are (with the exception of the prevalence of cases where a lack of available covid testing played a role.) The CDC reported flu death count is an estimate, "modeled on official flu deaths reported, deaths from flu-like causes reported, and what we know about flu epidemiology."
It also explains that the CDC has their regular way of doing things, which is slow and lags behind what's going on today and a fast count for trying to keep up to speed with things. 2009 H1N1 death stats were finalized in 2011.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/
"The Uncounted Dead" holds up one example of a one unhealthy person who was told by his doctor to get tested for Coronavirus and he refused as evidence that deaths are underreported? When there is already a 30,000-death discrepancy between provisional and reported deaths?
It's a flimsy hook upon which to hang a fireman's hat. A few observations:
From the article:
"Instead, because he didn’t die at a hospital and because this was at the beginning of the pandemic,
when guidelines were rapidly changing…"
The new
ICD Code Alert No. 2 for COVID-19 was released on March 24, and Bob died on March 29th. The new codes were to be implemented "immediately." This undercuts the claim above that is either sloppy journalism or deliberate misrepresentation. Maybe just one primary physician's oversight.
Oddly, but not surprisingly, none of the "experts" who say that COVID-19 deaths are underreported are on the record in this article. There is no estimate on the number of underreported Coronavirus deaths. Just that "
some people who
likely died from COVID-19 aren’t included in the final numbers." as a subhead.
This is an sensationalized op-ed piece, disguised as fact … the fulcrum being the flu death comparisons to COVID-19. The co-called "gotcha" moment for us who ask questions.
"Basically," says the article, "if you think COVID-19 deaths are being inflated, then you shouldn’t trust annual flu death counts, either. Or a whole host of other death counts.
The only reason to really think that COVID-19 death counts are less trustworthy at this point is that the flu is politically neutral while the new coronavirus is not."
Except, as Gulo states himself, that flu deaths are clearly listed as "estimates" by the CDC, where the COVID casualties are listed as "deaths" with disclaimers to qualify them. The word "estimates" is not used in any way in conjunction with Coronavirus deaths. So that torpedoes that above claim directly in the magazine.
And contradicts itself, IMO: "public health officials know that a straight count of formally diagnosed flu deaths would be an undercount of actual flu deaths."
Which is why the CDC errs on the side of "probable cause" … "COVID-19 deaths are identified using a new ICD–10 code. When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death – or when it is listed as a “probable” or “presumed” cause — the death is coded as U07.1. This can include cases with or without laboratory confirmation. "
Here's a common tactic of media -- assume we are stupid and uninformed. Which we are.
"It’s easy to get
confused and assume that the death count you’ve just seen in the newspaper has suddenly been cut in half."
This brand of editorializing is everything that is wrong with the media -- and with those who accept what it is reporting as accurate. It took me all of two minutes to read the associated disclaimers that differentiated provisional deaths from the reported deaths. This piece says the provisional (fast) count is "weeks behind" … when it is 1 to 8 weeks behind, depending on many variables, according to CDC. "one to eight weeks behind" is only three more words, in an article fraught with them, apparently, include for clarity.
I will credit the piece for offering the links to which the informed and interested can read the data for themselves.
Only more evidence to conclude that I am my own best journalist and researcher.
