Which deaths count toward the covid-19 death toll? It depends on the state

[SugarDaddy1]

In Alabama, officials have ruled that one of every 10 people who died with covid-19 did not die of covid-19. Among those excluded from the numbers reported to the federal government were a bedbound patient with aspiration pneumonia in one lung and a person with a buildup of fluid and partial collapse of one lung.

Colorado, by contrast, has included some deaths where the disease caused by the novel coronavirus was deemed probable - based on symptoms and possible exposure - but not confirmed through a test.

Health officials in both states say their approach is more accurate. Their divergent methods reflect a national debate over how to count the dead.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its website this week to explicitly say that cases where the infection was not confirmed by a test may now be counted. But attributing a death to the virus can be a judgment call, experts say, and potentially a vexing one as indications emerge that the disease damages not just the lungs but also the heart, kidneys and other organs.

Source

 

[Rightguide]

CDC guidelines require doctors to report Corona as a cause of death as long as the patient tests positive at death, regardless of whether or not it is the actual cause of death. So this works to increase the "actual" number of deaths that can realistically be said to have been caused by the CCP Virus.

 

[phrodeau]

The nationwide numbers are meaningless, same as China.

 

[dolf]

It's a fact that 90+% of people dying have preexisting conditions. That said, someone might have 5, 10, even 15 years of life left in them, and it seems incredibly heartless to discount their lives.

In the uk, only deaths in a hospital setting, with a positive test, are being counted for the daily tally. That means that our figures are actually probably lower than reality. Nursing homes are being decimated, and it's not been showing up in the official figures.

The number that interested me is the increased national mortality rate. It's a pretty big jump, but time will tell...