Tag: causes of death

CDC Chief Agrees There’s ‘Perverse’ Economic ‘Incentive’ for Hospitals to Inflate Coronavirus Deaths

United States hospitals have a “perverse” monetary “incentive” to increase their count of coronavirus fatalities, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s director Robert Redfield indicated under questioning from a Republican lawmaker during a House panel hearing on Friday.

Asked to comment on what Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) described as the “perverse incentive” during a hearing by the House Oversight and Reform Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Dr. Redfield responded:

I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes too, really in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack, but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement.

So I do think there’s some reality to that. When it comes to death reporting, though, ultimately, it’s how the physician defines it in the death certificate and … we review all of those death certificates.

So I think, probably it is less operable in the cause of death, although I won’t say there are not some cases. I do think though [that] when it comes to hospital reimbursement issues or individuals that get discharged, there could be some play in that for sure.

According to Congressman Luetkemeyer, Adm. Brett Giroir from the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has conceded that there is an economic incentive for hospitals to inflate their coronavirus fatalities.

Giroir “acknowledged that the statistics he is getting from the states are over-inflated,” the Republican lawmakers said.

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Autopsy shows Wellington nurse died of kidney infection, not COVID-19

A report from the Palm Beach County Medical examiner obtained by CBS12 News shows that a young Wellington nurse believed to have passed from COVID-19, was never infected with the virus at all.

The report shows that 33-year-old Danielle DiCenso died from “complications of acute pyelonephritis,” otherwise known as a kidney infection.

DiCenso was quarantining at home when she died suddenly in her sleep. Before she passed away, DiCenso was tested for COVID-19 after she was reportedly exposed to the virus at work.

Her husband, David DiCenso told CBS12 News that the young nurse was not given proper PPE at her job at Palmetto General in Hialeah. He said she began experiencing coronavirus symptoms in late March, and her test came back inconclusive.

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CDC Director Says There are More Suicides and Overdoses than COVID Deaths

Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield testified in a Buck Institute webinar that suicides and drug overdoses have surpassed the death rate for COVID-19. Redfield argued that lockdowns and lack of public schooling constituted a disproportionally negative impact on young peoples’ mental health.

“We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above excess that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths from COVID,” he said.

Roughly 146,000 people have died from COVID or COVID-related causes in the U.S., according to CDC data.

The most recent publicized federal data records 48,000 deaths from suicide and at least 1.4 million attempts in 2018. In 2019, almost 71,000 people died from drug overdoses.

Where Redfield obtained his data is unknown, although a doctor at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, CA claimed the facility has “seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.” He did not say how many deaths occurred, or whether the statement was exaggerated for emphasis.

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Deaths incorrectly attributed to COVID-19 in Palm Beach County

A 60-year-old man who died from a gun shot wound to the head.

A 90-year-old man who fell and died from complications of a hip fracture.

A 77-year-old woman who died of Parkinson’s disease.

These are some of the deaths in Palm Beach County recently, and incorrectly, attributed to COVID-19 in medical examiner records.

The CBS12 News I-Team uncovered several examples in Medical Examiner reports of people counted as a COVID death who did not die of COVID.

We requested a list of all COVID-19 deaths in Palm Beach County from the Medical Examiner’s office and received a spread sheet of 581 cases.

Each person on the spreadsheet is someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

In each case line, the person’s cause of death and contributing causes of death are listed, if there are any.

The I-Team found eight cases in which a person was counted as a COVID death, but did not have COVID listed as a cause of contributing cause of death.

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John Ioannidis Warned COVID-19 Could Be a “Once-In-A-Century” Data Fiasco. He Was Right

On Thursday, a Florida health official told a local news station that a young man who was listed as a COVID-19 victim had no underlying conditions.

The answer surprised reporters, who probed for additional information.

“He died in a motorcycle accident,” Dr. Raul Pino clarified. “You could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that one.”

The anecdote is a ridiculous example of a real controversy that has inspired some colorful memes: what should define a COVID-19 death?

While the question is important, such incidents may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg regarding the unreliability of COVID-19 data.

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Are official figures overstating England’s Covid-19 death toll?

Matt Hancock has announced an urgent review into how Public Health England (PHE) counts Covid-19 deaths after discovering what appeared to be a serious issue in how rates are calculated.

Following the health secretary’s move on Friday, Yoon K Loke and Carl Heneghan, of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, wrote in a blogpost: “It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the Covid test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community.”

A Department of Health and Social Care source summed this up as: “You could have been tested positive in February, have no symptoms, then be hit by a bus in July and you’d be recorded as a Covid death.”

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UK gov’t (finally) admits Covid statistics are inaccurate

The UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has announced an “urgent review” of procedure for recording Covid19 deaths.

It turns out the British government may have been over-reporting deaths from Covid19.

Who knew, right?

This follows the “news” that Public Health England (PHE) have been recording Covid19 as the cause of death for anyone who has ever tested positive for the virus.

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