The COVID Response: What We Got Wrong

The NYT’s COVID Tracker Is Back!

It seems that the NYT has resumed making updates to its COVID tracking pages. CA forwarded the first one to me, showing that there are still 684 deaths per week attributed to the virus.

But remember… that number is still based on the CDC’s original mandate that if someone dies with COVID, they are to be officially recorded as dying from COVID. Which means that people that were obese and/or diabetic and/or sick with cancer who tested positive for COVID when they were checked into the hospital are reported as having died from COVID. It also means – in theory, at least – that someone pulled out of a motorcycle accident with severe internal bleeding could be counted as yet another COVID death.

I know that that sounds preposterous. I’m sure you are thinking I’ve lost my mind. But it was the protocol adopted by the CDC.

Since this crazy protocol first came out, I’ve been looking for something to tell me that it was a hoax. I’ve found nothing. What I’ve found instead is several reports that tried to estimate by what degree it has exaggerated the COVID death count. According to those calculations, making up for the double-counting, the CDC reported count is a huge overstatement. If reported correctly, it would be reduced by about 70%. That means the weekly death count is about 200, not +/- 700 as shown in the NYT’s COVID Tracker.

That’s not nothing. It’s 10,000 deaths a year. But to put it in perspective, it’s about one-third the annual death count from the flu.