Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

One in 3 death certificates were wrong before coronavirus. It's about to get even worse.

Up to 1 in 3 death certificates nationwide were already wrong before COVID-19, said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics in an interview with the USA TODAY Network.
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A 2017 review of Missouri hospitals, for example, found nearly half of death certificates listed an incorrect cause of death. A Vermont study found 51% of death certificates had major errors. Nearly half of the physicians the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed in 2010 admitted that they knowingly reported an inaccurate cause of death. Death certificates regularly lack enough details to accurately pinpoint the cause of death, Anderson said.
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Coroners, however, are not always doctors. In some states, such as Alabama and Georgia, the only requirement for a coroner is that they are a non-felon of legal age to be elected to the position.

Even those with medical expertise, though, regularly get it wrong. In Vermont, there are no coroners. If a death is natural or happens in a hospital or out in the community, physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants fill out death certificates. And the state medical examiner’s office, which investigates violent deaths, reviews about 5,000 certificates each year to find and fix errors.

When the state medical examiner’s office compared 601 death certificates completed between July 1, 2015 and Jan. 31, 2016 with medical records, they found that 51% had major errors.

 

Yup suspicion...gently held. I'm would think that Medicare will look into it considering the situation where they know to look for it. It would seem a big risk by the hospitals themselves to try to pull some fraud when all eyes are on Covid.

That said, I'm reminded of the situation out here where the now known first Covid related death was a 50 something year old woman who had a massive heart attack in January, but it wasn't determined until April 24th that it was covid-related.

 

Please stop with the conspiracy nonsense. This has been discussed multiple times in this thread. I'll repeat it again...

COD was not changed....reporting guidance changed.

This is from the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf

Resulting in this statement on worldometer:

All that changed was CDC guidance allowed previously suspected COVID-19 deaths to be included in the reporting.

 

Funny, the post you replied to said:
"So much this. I wish republicans weren’t so brainwashed on this issue. A second wave is so much worse for the economy than waiting a bit to open back up."

This post says that Republicans are brainwashed. It is over broad in using a generic term for all Republicans as I know many that are not brainwashed by Trump (certainly a disturbing amount are to me as evidenced by his contention that he could "shoot someone on 5th ave and not lose supporters"). It then says, correctly, that a second wave would be worse.

You proceeded to say Democrats want to tank the economy to defeat trump. Overbroad premise just like the post you replied to. AND idiotic in content. See the difference now. Your post was ridiculously over generalized AND false, and just because "he did it too" (or part of "it") doesn't make you saying it any less pathetic.

I am not "a liberal", or maybe I am. You have no idea (actually fiscally conservative but think the wealth inequality allowed by Democrats and put on high speed by republicans is behind much of the current disfunction in this country). But go ahead and label me too as it seems what you desire or all you can do. I prefer focusing on content, and that is what I did in your post. Rather than attack me, defend your contention that Democrats are tanking the economy?

By the way, thanks for calling me "liberal" as it is largely a compliment. Definitions:
not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms
concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.

 

It's weird.

That one guy on here keeps pushing idea there were substantially more infections - and the virus was here much earlier than expected. If indeed there were earlier cases, that means there must have been earlier unreported deaths far beyond just that one early woman. Virus couldn't have been floating around in January if it wasn't really killing anybody in massive numbers until March/April. There must have at least been some uptick of deaths, esp in February, that were not yet being reported, because they were not known.

Then when they retro-actively add a bunch of deaths, "it's a conspiracy".

Whether the virus was here "earlier" or not (meaning a bunch of February deaths that went unreported) most likely we are dramatically under-counting hospice and nursing home deaths right now as well. I'd look for some more lump-sum updates to add thousands, maybe 10's of thousands, once they get those all figured out. Not sure how many February deaths went unreported, but logically even with a modest spread there must have at least been hundreds of deaths before things got ramped up in March/April (i.e. once we finally started testing to finally be able to diagnose the disease at all, in anybody, in the early phases there were no tests and there obviously was no clue).

 

todays numbers vs last sunday.very similar, today 26509 new cases, 1157 deaths, last sunday 26113 new cases, 1570 deaths.i will agree that testing is not as common on suday as other days, although, imo, if this is a pandedmic it should be, but testing last week was ramped up,maybe more were done today than last sunday and progress is being made,lets hope.

 

I agree with you. What I was getting at with OK, agreeing with him too, was more that retroactive will in a sense naturally raise some suspicion, but it is why I said "gently held." Let's face it, forces that would put pressure on people to commit fraud are kind of always there anyway, and there's always someone/some entity that will go that route. But I don't think we need to be that suspicious of these retroactive changes given the situation we are in and that there's no doubt folks will be looking for fraud anyway (Medicare authorities put a lot of effort toward this end).

95 assumed fraud--that is what I was pushing back against since he was basing it on retroactive listing, but seemed not to take into any account about there being good or even necessary reason to other than fraud. What I left out, however, was part of it was about future documentation and analysis.

You make a great point, if it were that much more widespread in Jan and early Feb, we might expect to find more deaths. And maybe we do down the road, but the lack of them seems curious to me now that you mention it.

 

just looked up the numbers on the covid19 testing project, today 256444 tests, last sunday 167220, almost 90000 more tests, only about 400 new cases, thoughts?

 

Looking at the chart of new US cases by day, they always add the fewest new cases on Sundays.

United States Coronavirus: 987,322 Cases and 55,415 Deaths - Worldometer

Not saying it's bad or good, but looking at that new cases by day chart I don't really see much change right now, either up or down. The two days before Sunday were the most new cases per day of any day since the pandemic started. That's not a good sign, but the number of tests is climbing too.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think tests and results are from the same day. I don't know what the lag is now, but it was a few days or even up to a week. Hopefully it's shorter now, but I still doubt people are generally getting their results on the same day as their test.

 

I am disgusted by people that cling to the media. Trump stopped the Chinese from entering the country and the leftist called him a racist and xenophobe. The left thinks the wall is racist but isn't it a good idea to stop diseases coming across the border. Trump followed his scientist for the most part that were grossly grossly wrong. Grossly wrong. The honk for Facci signs in our neighborhood are a joke. The lies come from the media. The right conservative wing will have the most multicultural wins ever in our country in 2020. The phony Russia scandal. the phony impeachment and the crap Pelosi put into the Corona bill is evil. The Dems are not for the country. I don't quite have the disdain for the the country killing Dems as you do for the supporters of Trump. I just feel sorry for you to think you are so superior. MAGA 2020!

 

at the risk of being called out,why the hell even publish numbers if nobody knows what day they are from, are some daily numbers from that day, 2 days, 4 days old, just, like some say, publish weekly numbers then.

 

It’s sad how lost some people have become. Be careful where you consume your news folks. It does have an impact on what we hold to be true.

 

I had an employee get in in 48 hours...but we havent had a shortage of tests here either. Probably longer in areas where there are backlogs.

 

yes, but those 2 days were the 2nd and 3rd most tests in a day, logic says, more tests, more chance for higher positives.guess what is needed is percentage of positive test, per day from how many were given, is it 15%, 10,% what?

 

jeff Bezos is making money hand over fist from this pandemic. I know he and trump are mortal enemies, and some like him for that, but he and amazon need to step up and donate.i am not a huge bill gates fan, but at least he is willing to give, amazon is firing employees for speaking out against unsafe working conditions.

 

I think the big takeaway here is that no one day total really tells us much especially Sunday’s

 

I was agreeing with you. Thought it was a good point.

It was 95 that seemed to reflexively assume that hospitals were fudging the numbers, suggesting I didn't care.

I can see the suspicion, that would come naturally, but like you said fog of war. The circumstances are dictating this. They'll be an accounting on the Medicare side of things, and down the line we'll get a clearer picture from the CDC and research.