Media Grossly Misreporting COVID Death Counts

Almost everyday now, we read and hear about how daily deaths from COVID-19 have reached record highs. It sounds scary, but the truth is, the mainstream media is grossly misleading the public by misreporting the death counts.

Media grossly misreporting COVID death counts

In USA Today the paper wrote: “Florida, Texas and South Carolina set records for new daily deaths, reporting 156, 129 and 69, respectively.”

ABC News reported that “Nineteen states set single-day records for the most cases this week … Three states set a record today.”

According to PBS in Arizona, the state “on Saturday (July 18) set a record for coronavirus-related deaths reported in one day, with 147, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.”

Although everyone agrees that one death is one too many, let’s forgo for a second that the COVID death rate in most counties in the country is well below 1%. Additionally, COVID deaths in many places are well below that of deaths attributed to any number of other causes.

The PBS story is particularly illuminating because the website the article links to includes a chart of daily deaths in the state. It lists only three deaths on July 19th. What’s more, the chart shows that there hasn’t been a single day in the state where deaths exceeded 65.

So where did that scary 147 number come from? The same place all the other “surging” numbers come from. Each day, states file reports on how many people died from COVID-19. It’s not a measure of how many died that day. In most cases, the people died days or even weeks earlier.

constant rhythmic spikes are often due to periodic reviews of death certificates

If you look at the actual charts and numbers, you will notice constant rhythmic spikes in the death count. This is due to the fact that COVID-19 deaths are often not reported as they happen, but rather during periodic reviews of death certificates.

In Texas, a Dallas Morning News headline shouted that “As Texas sees a record 174 coronavirus deaths in a day, Gov. Greg Abbott pleads for use of masks.”

But CDC data show that none of the recorded deaths in Texas occurred last week. As far as it knows, only 64 died the week before that.

Nationwide, it’s the same story.

For the week ending July 18th, the CDC says that only 190 COVID-related deaths are known to have occurred. But the trackers all show more than 5,000 deaths that week. The week before that, the CDC says it knows of 1,623 deaths, while the trackers report more than 4,600.

All of this data does not even begin to include the debate of whether a person died due to COVID or with COVID. Most recently, a man who died from COVID in a motorcycle crash in Florida gained national attention, but this is by far not the only incident like this.

There is also a growing concern that the number of deaths caused by other health issues such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes and even the flu, are showing a dramatic decline. Under normal circumstances, this would be great news, however the common thought is becoming that these deaths are being misreported as COVID deaths.

This becomes so confusing for COVID-19, as the immediate cause of death might be listed on the death certificate as respiratory distress, with the second line reading “due to COVID-19.” Contributing factors such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure would then be listed further down. This has led to some confusion by people arguing that the “real” cause of death was heart disease or diabetes.

Because of the way COVID reporting has been handled, the data is challenging to interpret at best. There are many experts who feel however, that the worst of the coronavirus “surge” may have already happened and the current panic is being stoked by a negligent mainstream media that are unwilling or unable to understand the data they’re reporting.

KPGZ News - Jim Dickerson contributed to this report