US COVID death count at 70,000 in Trump coverup, no test, no ‘Count’

The numbers the White House controlled CDC uses are well under those used by any other organization, and we are talking about numbers of dead.  Now, the NY Times reports that the real number is astronomically higher, meaning we will be crossing the 100,000 threshold this week.

You see, the CDC only released, not a death reporting “requirement” but loose suggestions, only a few days ago.  Though Trump has been tested twice and the wealthy and powerful get tested continually, the US is only doing 40,000 COVID tests a day, meaning those carrying the disease but sub-critical, are not tested but advised to stay home.

Thus far, very few of those who have died of CV19 were tested as the tests were and are in short supply and without tests, deaths have not been listed and this makes up a vast majority of CV19 deaths.

Now things will be better, though tests aren’t available, but when and if they are, then the CDC will “strongly encourage” those dealing with COVID dead to actually report them.

But then there’s aways the Trump dodge of “co-morbidity,” whatever that means.

“NY Times: Inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision-making has led to an undercounting of people with the coronavirus who have died, health experts say.

Lina Evans, the coroner in Shelby County, Ala., said she is now suspicious of a surge in deaths in her county earlier this year, many of which involved severe pneumonias. Credit…Bob Miller for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the coronavirus had killed a man in early March, but said that her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the coronavirus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection.

In Virginia, a funeral director prepared the remains of three people after health workers cautioned her that they each had tested positive for the coronavirus. But only one of the three had the virus noted on the death certificate.

Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher.

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision-making from one state or county to the next.

In many rural areas, coroners say they don’t have the tests they need to detect the disease. Doctors now believe that some deaths in February and early March, before the coronavirus reached epidemic levels in the United States, were likely misidentified as influenza or only described as pneumonia.

With no uniform system for reporting coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, and a continued shortage of tests, some states and counties have improvised, obfuscated and, at times, backtracked in counting the dead.”

“We definitely think there are deaths that we have not accounted for,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, which studies global health threats and is closely tracking the Coronavirus pandemic.

Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for how to certify coronavirus deaths, underscoring the need for uniformity and reinforcing the sense by health care workers and others that deaths have not been consistently tracked. In its guidance, the C.D.C. instructed officials to report deaths where the patient has tested positive or, in an absence of testing, “if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.”

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