This isn't as big a gotcha as you think (although, it's pretty big).
They list as one of the chief comorbidities "influenza and pneumonia." Given that the Wuflu can lead to pneumonia in some cases, is this a comorbidity or a symptom? Also, they don't separate influenza from pneumonia. That seems really weird, as it would dramatically taint their numbers. Which death was caused by kung flu, which by influenza, which by pneumonia? Was the pneumonia caused by seasonal influenza, kung flu, neither, or both? The problem is that the pneumonia could have been caused by COVID 19, thus putting those deaths in the "caused by COVID" column, but how many? Only an audit could tell us that.
Leaving out the pneumonia row, what about "Adult respiratory distress syndrome," "Respiratory failure," and "Respiratory arrest?" Are those linked as symptoms of COVID? I thought the kung flu could cause those conditions, are they symptoms, comorbidities, or both?
There's a lot to be desired in this. It doesn't answer as many questions as it raises. It seems to muddy the waters even further.
Ditto. I feel like this isn't the CDC trying to make a last minute correction, as much as it is them having the data to refine the picture.
In other words, I would not go shoving this in the face of a bunch of libs to show them they're wrong, just yet..
However, if you look at the comorbidities table, you can see that out of the 161,392 total count, 77,990 deaths were attributed to a cause that probably had little to do with covid. Being able to cut the covid 19 death count in HALF (based on deaths that could reasonably be linked to symptoms of a respiratory illness) is still good news.
I agree about the 78k or so that are attributed to things that have little to nothing to do with the disease. Cutting the death count in half, then adjusting by about 25% down based upon what Dr. Birx stated about overcounts, then remembering that 40% of the deaths are attributed to nursing homes (of which many were forced to take in infectious individuals, thus were preventable), then the numbers become quite small.
Back of the envelope math yields about 40k deaths. This is very rough and likely highly inaccurate, but this places COVID-19 in the same range as the seasonal flu.
This isn't as big a gotcha as you think (although, it's pretty big).
They list as one of the chief comorbidities "influenza and pneumonia." Given that the Wuflu can lead to pneumonia in some cases, is this a comorbidity or a symptom? Also, they don't separate influenza from pneumonia. That seems really weird, as it would dramatically taint their numbers. Which death was caused by kung flu, which by influenza, which by pneumonia? Was the pneumonia caused by seasonal influenza, kung flu, neither, or both? The problem is that the pneumonia could have been caused by COVID 19, thus putting those deaths in the "caused by COVID" column, but how many? Only an audit could tell us that.
Leaving out the pneumonia row, what about "Adult respiratory distress syndrome," "Respiratory failure," and "Respiratory arrest?" Are those linked as symptoms of COVID? I thought the kung flu could cause those conditions, are they symptoms, comorbidities, or both?
There's a lot to be desired in this. It doesn't answer as many questions as it raises. It seems to muddy the waters even further.
Ditto. I feel like this isn't the CDC trying to make a last minute correction, as much as it is them having the data to refine the picture.
In other words, I would not go shoving this in the face of a bunch of libs to show them they're wrong, just yet..
However, if you look at the comorbidities table, you can see that out of the 161,392 total count, 77,990 deaths were attributed to a cause that probably had little to do with covid. Being able to cut the covid 19 death count in HALF (based on deaths that could reasonably be linked to symptoms of a respiratory illness) is still good news.
I agree about the 78k or so that are attributed to things that have little to nothing to do with the disease. Cutting the death count in half, then adjusting by about 25% down based upon what Dr. Birx stated about overcounts, then remembering that 40% of the deaths are attributed to nursing homes (of which many were forced to take in infectious individuals, thus were preventable), then the numbers become quite small.
Back of the envelope math yields about 40k deaths. This is very rough and likely highly inaccurate, but this places COVID-19 in the same range as the seasonal flu.