Just How Exaggerated Is The COVID-19 Death Count?

[Geee]

Issues & Insights

As the “official” tally of COVID-19 deaths tops 100,000 in the U.S., we keep hearing how that number is likely a low-ball estimate. But there’s far more evidence that the death count has been knowingly exaggerated – possibly by a very wide margin.

A recent Seattle Times article pretty much lays out the charade going on.

 

The headline reads: “Washington state’s actual coronavirus death toll may be higher than current tallies, health officials say.”

But the story itself leads one to the exact opposite conclusion.

Well down in the article, the reporter reveals that:

“The rapid onslaught of this coronavirus forced officials to part from their normal process of counting deaths. … Their goal was to get the data out as quickly as possible, ‘in near-real time so immediate decisions could be made to protect the health of Washingtonians.’”

The story goes on to say that the state’s dashboard “reflects anyone who died, that tested positive for COVID, irrespective of cause of death.” (Emphasis added.)

Basically, the state has been matching up the names of those who died this year with a database containing names of people who tested positive for COVID-19.

A review of the data by the Olympia-based Freedom Foundation found that of all the deaths attributed to the virus, 5% didn’t list COVID-19 as the cause of death on their death certificates. Another 13% involved people who had at one time tested positive for the disease, but the virus wasn’t “listed on death certificates as either causing or contributing to death.” Five of the state’s “coronavirus deaths” actually died from gunshot wounds.