Not
only are the coronavirus models being used by WHO and the most national
health agencies based on highly dubious methodologies, and not only are
the tests being used of wildly different quality, that only indirectly confirm antibodies of a possible COVID-19 illness. Now
the actual designations of deaths related to coronavirus are being
revealed to be equally problematic for a variety of reasons. It gives
alarming food for thought as to the wisdom of deliberately putting most
of the world’s people–and with it the world economy–into Gulag-style lockdown on the argument it is necessary to contain deaths and prevent overloading of hospital emergency services.
When
we take a closer look at the definitions used in various countries for
“death related to COVID-19” we get a far different picture of what is
claimed to be the deadliest plague to threaten mankind since the 1918
“Spanish Flu.”
The USA and CDC definitions
Right
now the USA is said to be the nation with far the largest number of
COVID-19 deaths, as of this writing, with media reporting some 68,000
“Covid-19” deaths. Here is where it gets very dodgy. The Government
agency responsible for making the cause of death tally for the country,
the CDC, is making huge changes in how they count so-called novel
coronavirus deaths.
As
of May 5, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the central
agency recording cause of death nationwide, reported 39,910 COVID-19
deaths. A footnote defines this as “Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19.” How
a doctor makes the “presumed” judgment leaves huge latitude to the
hospital and health professionals. Although the coronavirus tests are
known to be subject to false results, CDC states that even where no
tests have been made a doctor can “presume” COVID-19. Useful to note for
perspective is the number of USA deaths recorded from all causes in the same period of February 1 through May 2, that was 751,953.
Now it gets more murky. The CDC posted this notice: “As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths.”
From that time the number of so-called COVID-19 deaths in USA has
exploded in an alarming manner it would appear. On that day, April 14,
New York City’s coronavirus death toll was revised with a major 3,700
fatalities added, with the provision that the count now included “people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have it.” The
CDC now defines confirmed as “confirmatory laboratory evidence for
COVID-19,” which as we noted elsewhere included tests of dubious
precision, but at least tests. Then they define “probable” as “with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19.” Just a guess of the doctor in charge.
Now
leaving aside the major discrepancy between the CDC headline COVID-19
deaths as of May 5 of 68,279 and their detailed total of 39,910 deaths
for the same period, we find another problem. Hospitals and doctors are being told to list COVID-19 as cause of death even
if, say, a patient age 83 with pre-existing diabetes or cardiac issues
or pneumonia dies with or without COVID-19 tests. The CDC advises, “In
cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID cannot be made but is
suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling with a
reasonable degree of certainty) it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a
death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed.’” This opens the door
ridiculously wide for abuse of coronavirus death numbers in the United
States.
A Big Money Incentive
A
provision in the March 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic
Security Act, known as the CARES Act, gives a major incentive for
hospitals in the US, most all of them private for-profit concerns, to
deem newly-admitted patients as “presumed COVID-19.” By this simple
method the hospital then qualifies for a substantially larger payment
from the government Medicare insurance, the national insurance for those
over 65. The word “presumed” is not scientific, not at all precise but
very tempting for hospitals concerned about their income in this crisis.
Dr Summer McGhee, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven, notes that,
“The CARES Act authorized a temporary 20 percent increase in reimbursements from Medicare for COVID-19 patients…” He added that, as a result, “hospitals that get a lot of COVID-19 patients also get extra money from the government.”
Then, according to a Minnesota medical doctor, Scott Jensen,
also a State Senator, if that COVID-19 designated patient is put on a
ventilator, even if only presumed to have COVID-19, the hospital can get
reimbursed three times the sum from the Medicare. Dr Jensen told a
national TV interviewer,
“Right now Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much.”
Little
wonder that states such as Massachusetts suddenly began backdating
cause of death totals back to March 30, significantly inflating COVID
death numbers, or that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo began demanding
30,000 ventilators and emergency equipment around the same early April
time, equipment that was not needed.
In
short, the COVID-19 death statistics in the USA are highly dubious for a
variety of reasons, not least huge financial incentives to hospital
administrators who had been told to cancel all other operations to make
extra room for a predicted flood of coronavirus ill. That rising death
toll said to be “COVID-19 or presumed” impacts the decisions to lock
down the economy and in effect create an economic pandemic of
unparalleled dimension.
Italy COVID deaths?
Not
only are USA COVID-19 death numbers open to serious question. If we
look closely most major countries have equally dubious data. Until
recently one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the EU was Italy
where outbreaks have been concentrated in the Lombardy and adjacent
regions of the industrial north. Here again the definition of cause of
death has been fuzzy. A report in the Journal of the American Medical
Association by a group of Italian doctors who analyzed the alarming high
covid-19 figures pointed out that when state medical authorities made
detailed case examination of a sample of 355 covid-19 “presumed” deaths,
they found that the mean age was 79.5 years. “In this sample, 117
patients (30%) had ischemic heart disease, 126 (35.5%) had diabetes, 72
(20.3%) had active cancer, 87 (24.5%) had atrial fibrillation, 24 (6.8%)
had dementia, and 34 (9.6%) had a history of stroke. The mean number of
preexisting diseases was 2.7. Overall, only 3 patients (0.8%) had no diseases.” That means that of the sample 99.2% had other serious illnesses.
In
Italy, the persons who tested positive for COVID-19, regardless of
preexisting serious illness, were listed as COVID-19 fatalities. Italy
has the EU’S oldest population on average and the worst air pollution in
the EU, especially in the Lombardy region. From the first case in early
February until 6 May Italy has declared 29,315 COVID-19 deaths. This is
more than the total of deaths in 2017 attributed to influenza and/or
pneumonia which was reported 25,000.
The
reason for the apparent spike should be seriously investigated, but
reports of panic among hospital workers over the shutdown declaration by
the Conte government, with thousands reportedly fleeing Italy for their
home countries in Poland or elsewhere, might have also played a role.
On March 31 a report from northern Italy stated, “In recent weeks, most
of the Eastern European nurses who worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
supporting people in need of care in Italy have left the country in a
hurry. This is not least because of the panic-mongering and the curfews
and border closures threatened by the ‘emergency governments.’“
In
many countries the picture is one of a predominately mild
influenza-like infection with comparable death rates. The lack of
uniformly agreed tests and the inaccuracies of many tests used, as well
as the extremely doubtful criteria for declaring a cause of death as
being “from” COVID-19 suggest that it is well past time to reexamine the
unprecedented lockdown measures, social distancing, possible mandatory
vaccines of unproven effect, all of which are creating what is becoming
the worst economic depression since the 1930’s.
*
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F. William Engdahl is
strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics
from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and
geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Featured image is from NEO
| By F. William Engdahl Global Research, May 12, 2020 |
| Url of this article: https://www.globalresearch.ca/ |
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