Former CDC Medical Officer Calls Out Inaccurate COVID Death Count
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a Clinical Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine (USC) and former Centres For Disease Control (CDC) medical officer has, like many other experts in the field, voiced his concerns of what appears to be an inaccurate COVID death count.
This observation has been pointed out from the beginning of the pandemic. It began when multiple health authorities admitted that a COVID death includes those who died with a positive test, regardless of whether the cause of death was something completely unrelated.
In late June of 2020 Toronto (Ontario, Canada) Public Health tweeted that “Individuals who have died with COVID-19, but not as a result of COVID-19 are included in the case counts for COVID-19 deaths in Toronto.”
Sir David John Spiegelhalter OBE FRS, a well known British statistician explained after one year into the pandemic how multiple countries changed their definition of a COVID death several times. Even statements from politicians throughout this pandemic has caused confusion.
Spiegelhalter and Simmons both explain that one UK official said, “You could have tested positive in February, have no symptoms, then be hit by a bus in July and you’d be recorded as a COVID death.” You can find more examples here.
Klausner explains in an article he published for The Hill last July,
"The number of cases, test positivity, hospitalizations and deaths being reported by local and state health departments, the mainstream media and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have little meaning these days."
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner
He does however believe that these numbers were more accurate during beginning of the pandemic, but that belief is still countered by the statements above.
At the end of the day, based on the definitions of a "COVID" death throughout the entire period of the pandemic, it's safe to say that many deaths were over counted. The potential for undercounted deaths also exists, so you'll have to use your best judgement and multiple other factors to find out out how many people may have actually died from COVID, and not just with COVID.
"Like testing results and hospitalizations, death counts are also an overestimate of deaths caused by COVID-19."
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner
It's hard to have a reference point, as Klausner states in his tweet above,
"Test every patient for staph, count those as staph deaths, we will always have staph deaths."
For the first time in history, we are doing mass testing for a virus. Imaging if every single person who enters and exits the hospital was tested for the flu, or other viruses and/or diseases. Imagine how much larger and overwhelming those numbers would be? Imagine if these positive tests were included with every death. How many more flu deaths would there be a year if we did that? It would for sure no doubt be a shock to the public.
There's no denying people died from COVID, but misleading numbers have most likely given people an inaccurate perception of the pandemic. Just look at how inaccurate public perception has been about the rate of hospitalization from COVID.
Government, federal health agencies and mainstream media have been misleading since the beginning. Their strong smear and censorship campaigns against information that opposed their own, and the measures they took, is what sparked the masses to question what is really going on.
This is what happens when science becomes politicized, and ceases to be science. Epidemiologist Tracy Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D and researcher Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H. have published a paper that includes anonymous testimonies from CDC officials about the lack of science taking place at the CDC when it comes to COVID-19. You can read that here if interested.