COVID and Co-Morbidities

Several weeks ago the CDC announced some new COVID statistics. They said that of all the 190k or so COVID deaths only 9500 did not ha e co-morbidities. The Trump administration and apologists have jumped on this claiming that COVID is a hoax and that Trump did great, etc.

1. The first obvious issue has to do with death attribution. Let’s say some dude has a heart attack calls an ambulance and dies after they reach the emergency room. They do their post-Mortem stuff and discover that he also had controlled diabetes. What did he die of? Of course a heart attack. The apologists are effectively claiming it wasn’t the heart attack. Get over it.
2. "Hospitals are slapping COVID onto as many cases as they can so they can make more money" is another thing I’m still hearing. First, is this actually a thing? Do hospitals get extra for treating COVID? Second, doing so is a crime. It’s called fraud. The poor sucker who writes COVID on the car crams victim death certificate has committed a crime, but it’s one he doesn’t get any benefit from. He doesn’t get paid, the hospital does. What’s in it for him? People who say this one usually say "a friend of my uncle’s co-worker has a daughter who..." are deaths misattributed? Sure. I have seen no evidence that it is widespread or material. And if it is, the culprits should be prosecuted.
3. Attribution of death can be a dark art. In the case of COVID, some states prevented coroners from recording COVID deaths without a test (which were in short supply anyway). Anecdotally, there were significant cases where people presented with symptoms of COVID, died before a test, and were attributed as pneumonia or something else. We’ll never know about these.
4. We do have something else though. Total deaths every year shows seasonal fluctuations and tracks very well from year to year. In the US, the deaths beyond what would be expected—the excess deaths have been running about 25% higher than the official COVID deaths. Let’s break it down more though. What are the components of that 250k excess deaths? We know that flu deaths are low. Social distancing and masks have helped with that. Motor vehicle deaths are down. On the flip side, suicides may be higher, domestic violence deaths possibly too. There have probably been extra deaths from people who were unable to get medical care because of COVID related issues. I don’t know where this leaves us, but I’m pretty sure the COVID attribution x 1.25 is probably a reasonable number at this time.

Enough about that nonsense.

Voting for Trump in 2016 does not make YOU a bad person. He is has spent his life presenting a false image. He is very persuasive. He has now demonstrated that your faith in him was misplaced. You should consider changing your position on his competence.

It is difficult to make the case that the Trump administration’s handling of COVID has been anything but disastrous. By denying the virus, the claim is that they were emphasizing the economy. It cratered too. We are left with the worst health record and the worst economic performance in the world. These are not areas we want to lead in. Inconsistent and contradictory messaging has led to chaos and as second pulse of COVID. NO COUNTRY HAS DONE WORSE.

In fact, the only claim that Trump has to helping is the “travel ban” on China early on. Even that was symbolic though. It wasn’t a travel ban on travel from China, it was a ban on Chinese from China. Big difference. 40,000 came into the country from China during the ban.

Trump’s actions have been consistent with infecting as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Not slowing the spread, not delaying widespread infection until we could find better ways to handle the pandemic. He is ACTIVELY worsening the pandemic in America.

I welcome information that shows how Trump has actually helped, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.