#5 BLUF: NYC authorities' incompetence accounts for most of the damage we have seen in this country. First, they're very likely overcounting COVID as the cause of death. Second, they have almost certainly caused about 75% as many ADDITIONAL DEATHS -- ca. 3,000 total -- in NYC through April 11 by neglecting other urgent care needs during this time. Note that even with overcounting, COVID deaths account only about 55-60% of the increase in NYC fatalities vs prior years.
Longer version:
The CDC helpfully benchmarks each state's total 2020 fatalities vs its average total fatalities at the same point for the 2017-2019 period. Not one state shows a significant increase above the benchmark percentage of '100' for its year to date total deaths.
How can this be happening during a pandemic? Is the CDC instructing hospital pathologists to re-classify pneumonia deaths as COVID?
Also, the CDC helpfully breaks out New York City separately from the rest of New York State. There we do indeed see a spike vs the three-year benchmark: 163% of average or ca 7,000 additional deaths. But COVID only accounts for 4,000 deaths.
So that means NYC, in fighting COVID, has caused an additional 3,000 deaths -- most likely because, per Columbia's Dr Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, “[People] may be dying because of reduced care for other non-COVID diseases” like diabetes, heart attacks or other chronic conditions. “Those to me, should be somehow tallied as we’re looking at the death toll of COVID.”
IOW, NYC's panicked and incompetent response to COVID has almost certainly caused almost as many deaths from neglect of other conditions -- 3,000 additional deaths from non-COVID vs 4,000 COVID.
Also, we know that NY State health authorities in December 2019 were predicting an enormous rise in flu cases and flu deaths in NYC in 2020 vs 2017-2019. How many non-COVID influenza deaths have been wrongly coded in NYC as COVID?
CDC itself notes that "COVID-19 deaths may ... be classified or defined differently in various reporting and surveillance systems. Death counts in this report include ... deaths where COVID-19 is listed as a 'presumed' or 'probable' cause.")
Are the NYC authorities over-counting COVID as a 'presumed' cause?
Also look at California, which should be the epicenter given its 100,000+ travelers to and from China throughout December-February and its enormous homeless population and creaking urban hospital system, per CDC has registered a grand total of ... 354 deaths.
In a population of ca. 40 million, not even 1,000 deaths. For this the economy of California has already been cratered. Millions of California families are facing ruin now. |
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...