Two counties in California have reviewed every COVID-19 fatality, refining the approach to classifying the cause of death. Santa Clara and Alameda County delineated those patients who died due to the illness progression of COVID-19 and those who tested positive at the time of death but were not symptomatic. This exercise reduced the number of COVID-19 deaths in both counties by nearly 25%.
Early in the pandemic, questioning the COVID-19 death count was labeled a conspiracy theory by the corporate media. This position was always absurd based on the very loose criteria put out by the National Center for Health Statistics for counting a COVID-19 death. The ability to presume COVID-19 and place it as a cause of death during a period of perverse financial incentives for hospitals invited inflation of the fatality numbers. Medicare increased payment for COVID-19 patients, and private insurers covered the charges in full. These policies prevented the loss of co-pays and co-insurance unpaid by patients and additional reimbursement from government programs.
Any overpayments at this point are sunk costs. Public health authorities used COVID-19 hospitalizations as a reason to postpone many elective procedures. Not all delays of these procedures were rational, but fear and uncertainty reigned. How this will impact the quality of life and health of many Americans remains to be seen.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and infectious disease at the University of San Francisco, believes the CDC will ask all counties to do a similar assessment and believes an accurate accounting matters:
“It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death. I think that transparent communication is an upside, I mean, in the sense that it’s true that if we did this across the nation, it would bring our death rate lower. A downside of that, could be that people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as serious as you said.’”
“In the midst of everything COVID people were sort of putting down that cause of death as COVID. It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death.”
It is possible the analysis in the two counties was still too generous. A review of COVID-19 deaths in Minnesota found nearly 40% of deaths recorded were not attributable to COVID-19. Another study in New Jersey found that 89% of COVID-19 deaths were among patients with do-not-resuscitate orders before contracting the virus. Under normal conditions, patients with a terminal disease are not considered to have died from a respiratory virus in end-stage illness. – READ MORE
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