Underestimating Coronavirus Deaths

The New York Times writes that America is still unable to test for the virus and because of that, some deaths from coronavirus are not being counted. Maybe that is why the president has been sabotaging efforts to get large scale testing capacity up and running. Or, maybe it is just normal Trump administration incompetence. The NYT writes:

“WASHINGTON — A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the coronavirus had killed a man in early March, but said that her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the coronavirus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection. 

In Virginia, a funeral director prepared the remains of three people after health workers cautioned her that they each had tested positive for the coronavirus. But only one of the three had the virus noted on the death certificate. 

Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher. 

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next.”

The article goes on to describe how a salesman in California got sick, was taken to an urgent care clinic several days later. By then he was so weak he was in a wheelchair. In that sad incident, doctors prescribed antibiotics and a cough syrup and they gave him a chest X-ray. The doctors did not test for coronavirus. A day or two later, his wife found him dead in bed. His wife had repeatedly asked for him to be tested, and the answer was no, no, no. His wife pleaded with the CDC for a test and she hired a company to do an autopsy. Finally, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health tested the body and, 19 days after he died, they reported that he rested positive for coronavirus.

If his wife had not kept pushing for a test, that death would not have been reported as due to coronavirus.

The US response to this has been incompetent right from the get go and now months later still is incompetent. We still cannot test in the US, despite repeated lies about if from our chronic pathological liar president. This is what Trump Party ideology wants and gets from government, corruption, smug arrogance, incompetence and failure.

Try to look competent: Hide the data

In a related episode of Trump Party arrogance and incompetence, the government is not releasing ethnicity data for coronavirus deaths. Since this data is routinely collected, it is not a matter that the data doesn't exist. The Washington Post writes: “A civil rights group and hundreds of doctors are calling on the federal government to release race and ethnicity data on coronavirus infections and deaths from covid-19, citing reports that the pandemic is affecting African Americans at a disproportionate rate.”

The most obvious reason that death data isn't being released is that someone in government, probably the president, thinks that the data might make the president look bad. Several sources are reporting that African Americans have Contracted and died of coronavirus at a higher rate than other groups. ProPublica writes: “As public health officials watched cases rise in March, too many in the community shrugged off warnings. Rumors and conspiracy theories proliferated on social media, pushing the bogus idea that black people are somehow immune to the disease. And much of the initial focus was on international travel, so those who knew no one returning from Asia or Europe were quick to dismiss the risk.”