More and more people morons are expressing their disbelief at the veracity of the reported number of deaths due to Coronavirus. It’s actually “becoming common knowledge” that hospitals are getting funding bumps for bulking up their numbers. Of course it’s all part of the ongoing plot to overthrow President their savior and one true gawd, Donald “I know more about everything than anyone” Trump. These would be revolutionaries walking disease clusters are taking it way past the point of rational discussion and are now attending protest rallies while not wearing even minimal PPE like face masks. I guess that’s to prove how pure of heart they are and how much disdain they have for the people trying desperately to save their lives. They are confronting healthcare workers, waving flags, blocking streets, and access to hospitals, and in general acting like complete and total jackasses.
Convincing these people that the reported numbers are actually valid is difficult to do. It doesn’t matter what news source you cite, if it doesn’t fit their world view and what they know in their hearts to be true it’s fake news. Besides, Trump has ordered them to take back their states from the oppressive powers that be and they’ll be damned if they are going to let a bunch of namby, pamby scientists tell them they can’t get a haircut.
Unfortunately for them Fortunately for the rest of us the CDC and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CTSE) work tirelessly to figure out things like disease progression and contagion rates while trying to get accurate estimates of survival rates, death totals and anything else that will help them fight this and future diseases to save as many of us as they can — yes, even the jackasses. Scientists and doctors are cool like that.
Sadly, at the time of my writing there have been about 45,000 deaths currently attributed to Coronavirus in the United States. The vast majority of those diagnosed cases are backed by positive tests. However about 5000 are only “probable” COVID-19 deaths. That means they weren’t tested but the deceased exhibited all the common symptoms of Coronavirus before dying. Obviously it makes sense to add them to the final numbers and that is the now the official position of the CDC and the CTSE.
The CDC actually released a statement on this exact point — updating their official position back on 4/14. The internal link in this quote is to the official position statement of the CTSE (PDF) on which this policy is founded:
As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths. This change was made to reflect an interim COVID-19 position statementpdf iconexternal icon issued by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists on April 5, 2020. The position statement included a case definition and made COVID-19 a nationally notifiable disease.
A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19. A probable case or death is defined by i) meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or ii) meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or iii) meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19.
And that’s the end of it. It’s simply got to be the end of it. Anyone trying to “true up” the numbers now needs to be shown a link to that page and told to listen to the CDC. Heck it’s Trump’s freaking CDC so they can’t claim it’s a liberal plot or it’s some fake funding scam or it’s because Venus aligned with Mars and thus green cheese tastes good on tofu chips. The Very Smart People have spoken. It’s time to stop acting like fools.