Can any
government statistics on COVID-19 deaths be trusted?
It is an open question now that
we are learning that the highly respected, world-class Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) has been lying to us.
This revelation comes a few
days after I wrote here at American
Thinker that New York City was lying about COVID-19 deaths. The
normal rules about reporting deaths have been violated by that city in the rush
to inflate the body count, presumably to steer more taxpayer money to the Big
Apple.
That the CDC isn’t telling
the truth to Americans is no conspiracy theory: it’s right out there in
the open for everyone to see. The CDC openly admits that it is fudging
the COVID-19 death figures.
We know this because, among other truth-tellers, a plainspoken
small-town physician from Kalispell, Montana, has pulled back the curtain.
Dr. Annie Bukacek, MD, explained in a presentation how death
certificates are made. (See “Montana physician Dr. Annie Bukacek
discusses how COVID-19 death certificates are being manipulated,” YouTube, April 6)
Why should anyone care how a certificate of death is made?
Everyone should care “today when governments are making massive
changes that affect our constitutional rights and those changes are based on
inaccurate statistics,” Bukacek says.
The system is deeply flawed, she argues.
Few people know how much individual power and leeway is
given to the physician, coroner, or medical examiner, signing the death
certificate. How do I know this? I've been filling out death
certificates for over 30 years.
More often than we want
to admit, we don’t know with certainty the cause of death when we fill out
death certificates. That is just life. We are doctors, not
God. Autopsies are rarely performed and even when an autopsy is done the
actual cause of death is not always clear. Physicians make their best
guesstimate and fill out the form. Then that listed cause of death … is
entered into a vital records data bank to use for statistical analysis, which
then gives out inaccurate numbers, as you can imagine. Those inaccurate
numbers then become accepted as factual information even though much of it is false.
This has been the way it has been done for some time, Bukacek
says.
So even before we heard of COVID-19, death certificates
were based on assumptions and educated guesses that go unquestioned. When it comes to COVID-19 there is the
additional data skewer, that is –get this— there is no universal definition of
COVID-19 death. The
Centers for Disease Control, updated from yesterday, April 4th, still states
that mortality, quote unquote, data includes both confirmed and presumptive
positive cases of COVID-19.
That’s from their website.
Translation? The CDC counts both true COVID-19 cases
and speculative guesses of COVID-19 the same. They call it death by COVID-19. They
automatically overestimate the real death numbers, by their own
admission. Prior to COVID-19, people were more likely to get an accurate
cause of death written on their death certificate if they died in the
hospital. Why more accurate when a patient dies in the hospital?
Because hospital staff has physical examination findings labs, radiologic
studies, et cetera, to make a good educated guess. It is estimated that
60 percent of people die in the hospital. But even [with] those
in-hospital deaths, the cause of death is not always clear, especially in
someone with multiple health conditions, each of which could cause the death.
Bukacek refers to a March
24 CDC memo from Steven Schwartz, director of the Division of Vital
Statistics for the National Center for Health Statistics, titled “COVID-19
Alert No. 2.”
“The assumption of COVID-19
death,” she says, “can be made even without testing. Based on assumption
alone the death can be reported to the public as another COVID-19 casualty.”
There is a question-and-answer section on the memo.
One question is, “Will COVID-19 be the underlying cause?”
The answer is: “The underlying cause depends upon what and
where conditions are reported on the death certificate. However, the
rules for coding and selection of the underlying cause of death are expected to
result in COVID-19 being the underlying cause more often than not.”
Another question is, “Should ‘COVID-19’ be reported on the death
certificate only with a confirmed test?”
The answer is:
“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all
decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or
contributed to death.” [Boldfacing in original]
“You could see how these statistics have been made to look really
scary when it is so easy to add false numbers to the official database,”
Bukacek says. “Those
false numbers are sanctioned by the CDC.”
“The real number of COVID-19 deaths are not what most people are
told and what they then think,” she says.
“How many people have
actually died from COVID-19 is anyone’s guess … but based on how death
certificates are being filled out, you can be certain the number is
substantially lower than what we are being told. Based on inaccurate,
incomplete data people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing
cherished freedoms.”
It’s hard to argue with what Dr. Bukacek says, but no doubt angry
social media mobs will find a way as her chilling words enlighten the populace
that has been bullied into submission.
Of course, the disease’s body count is not the sole concern we
should have about the Chinese contagion, but it is undeniably the primary
driver of the rampant mass hysteria that has allowed state and local
governments across America to crush our cherished civil liberties.
As they say in newsrooms: if it bleeds, it leads.
Deaths are always going to be more “sexy” than confirmed cases. It is the
number that really, really counts, and Americans know this.
The fraudulent death statistics also give ammunition to the
legions of snitches and scolds who try to shame their fellow Americans for
attending church or playing catch in an empty park or taking a harmless drive
in the countryside to prevent themselves from going stir-crazy.
The fake death data from the CDC, coupled with wild guesstimates
from experts, and the relentless barrage of fear porn the mainstream media
subjects Americans to around the clock, have been getting results, even with a
plague that is, so far at least, underperforming.
First, experts told us 2.2 million Americans would die. Then
the number fell off a cliff, plunging down to around 200,000.
As of April 8, the number
of those expected to die from the disease by August 4 was down to 60,000, or
roughly a very nasty flu season. The new figure comes from the
influential model produced by the University of Washington that the White House
regularly cites.
Has social-distancing, wearing face masks, hosing down packages
with bleach, using hand sanitizer that is at least 60 percent alcohol, and washing
hands with soap and water for a minimum of 20 seconds helped bring the grim
worst-case-scenario body count down?
Probably, I’m guessing, but it’s hard to know for sure.
Maybe those
epidemiological modelers can be forgiven for scaring the bejeezus out of
Americans. Epidemiology is not, after all, an exact science, as its
practitioners sometimes acknowledge.
But those who have
force-fed modelers skewed data that led to the terrifying death forecasts that
stampeded governors into pushing the nation down the road to totalitarianism
need to be held to account.
Let the
investigations begin.
Matthew
Vadum is an independent
investigative reporter in Washington, D.C. and author of Team
Jihad: How Sharia-Supremacists Collaborate with Leftists to Destroy the United
Statesand Subversion
Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off
American Taxpayers.