What can I say? I enjoy being vindicated. And I would like to thank Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Rachel Walensky for making me feel as if I am. Earlier this week, I wrote about a study that demonstrated that prepositions matter when discussing hospitalizations for COVID-19 among children. There is a difference between getting hospitalized with COVID-19 and getting hospitalized for COVID-19 in the hospitals studied. Reported data does not capture this crucial distinction, which likely applies to hospitalizations of children and adults nationwide, given the testing protocols and reimbursement incentives.
I have been railing against the context-less reporting of death counts since the beginning of the pandemic. While writing for another outlet, I noted the bizarre instructions issued by the National Center for Health Statistics after CNN reporter Jim Acosta called any questioning of the counts a conspiracy theory. If Acosta is attacking an idea, there is almost certainly some truth to it. As testing protocols blossomed to the point where every inpatient received one, and the number of asymptomatic individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 became clear, there was even more reason to question the counts.
Then in December, two Minnesota lawmakers said that deaths in their state could have been inflated by as much as 40%. They reviewed thousands of death certificates, and concluded that something was off:
State Rep. Mary Franson and state Sen. Scott Jensen released a video last week revealing that after reviewing thousands of death certificates in the state, 40% did not have COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death.
“I have other examples where COVID isn’t the underlying cause of death, where we have a fall. Another example is we have a freshwater drowning. We have dementia. We have a stroke and multiorgan failure,” Franson said in the video.
She added that in one case, a person who was ejected from a car was “counted as a COVID death” because the virus was in his system.
This finding followed a study in New Jersey hospitals that found that almost 90% of patients who had COVID-19 listed as a cause of death had a Do Not Resuscitate Order in place before their hospitalization. From the study:
The significance of DNR status as an independent risk factor for mortality has not been documented previously in COVID19 patients. The present study analyzed data of 1270 patients with COVID-19, who were admitted to our institutions during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey. DNR patients had higher hazard ratios for risk of death and lower survival outcomes compared to non-DNR patients. The association between DNR status and poor clinical outcomes remained independently significant after adjustment for important clinical factors, including age, gender, COVID-19 symptoms at the time of admission and comorbidities.
So, if your doctor felt your health was poor enough to determine that resuscitating you or using lifesaving treatment would not maintain any quality of life, no matter your age, primary diagnosis, or related symptoms, you were more likely to die with COVID-19 on your chart.
Information like this was never shared with the public by the vaunted experts preferred by the legacy media. That may have led to the wildly inaccurate assessments of personal risk for severe disease from COVID-19 among the public.
This month, the sometimes unintentionally too candid Walensky said something on CNN:
