Tag: covid-19

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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Sweden riding high and the triumph of the rational herd immunity approach

On Tuesday, Sweden reported 0 deaths and just 77 cases. Over the past week, deaths have been no higher than two per day. What is so remarkable is that while there are other countries that have had near-zero deaths for even longer, Sweden has achieved this through herd immunity; prevented the lockdown deaths, emotional abuse, drug deaths, suicides, and financial ruin plaguing other countries; and – most importantly – is more fortified against a resurgence than these other countries that delayed herd immunity.

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DARPA’s Man in Wuhan

Michael Callahan’s career began in USAID and in the bioweapons labs of the former Soviet Union, advancing the agenda of the global bioweapons and pharmaceutical cartels. He would take what he learned there to execute a massive expansion of DARPA’s biodefense portfolio and today finds himself squarely in the center of the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

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No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist

There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.

Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.

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Hydroxychloroquine lowers Covid-19 death rate, study finds

The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helped lower the death rate in Covid-19 patients in the most recent study of the drug conducted by Henry Ford Health System.

Cardiologist Dr. William O’Neill, a medical director at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan, first spoke with “Full Measure” about the study while it was underway in May. The findings have just been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The large scale analysis examined 2,541 patients who had been hospitalized in six hospitals between March 10 and May 2, 2020.

More than twenty-six percent (26.4%) of patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine died. Nearly seventy-four percent (73.6%) survived.

But among those who received hydroxychloroquine: 13% died and 87% survived.

One suggested concern flagged in previous studies of hydroxychloroquine did not materialize in the Henry Ford Health System Study: heart-related adverse events.

The positive results compared to some other studies of hydroxychoroquine could be attributed, in part, to the timing of treatment say the study’s scientists. Ninety-one percent (91%) of the patients in the study were given hydroxychloroquine within 48 hours of admission.

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