Bombshell: Pennsylvania Admits Their COVID-19 Death Toll Is Inaccurate and Inflated As They’ve Been Counting ‘Probable Deaths’
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April 25, 2020
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April 26, 2020As the saying goes, there are liars, there are damn liars, and there are statisticians. And now we know that Pennsylvania’s government falls into the third category, as they’ve been forced to remove 200 “Coronavirus” deaths from their tally.
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine had to do some hasty backpedaling after coroners pointed out that the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 did not add up, at which point she admitted that yes, they’d been including “probable deaths” in their count. Surely for no political gain at all, since inflating that sort of data is for the good of. . . oh, no one?
The confusion began Sunday, when Pennsylvania raised its coronavirus death toll to 1,112 — an increase of 276 overnight. On Tuesday, the department reported another spike, from 1,204 to 1,564 deaths.
In both cases, Levine said the surges reflected deaths that occurred days, even weeks, in the past.
“These deaths did not happen overnight,” Levine said Sunday.
The jump that day, first blamed on a computer glitch, was explained as a “reconciliation” of multiple reporting systems and the “culmination of that data-validating effort.” Levine also said the “significant increase” included “probable positive” COVID-19 deaths, as well as deaths confirmed with a test.
So, let me get this straight. Out of the blue, the DOH decides to add in more deaths to their numbers, because. . . uhhh, what? Were the numbers not high enough or something? It’s not really clear whose idea this was, but we do know whose idea it wasn’t:
At the same time, the state’s coroners — tasked with investigating suspicious deaths — have grown increasingly frustrated by the Health Department’s reluctance to seek their help.
Some have said the department’s numbers did not match what coroners were seeing. Those concerns caught the attention of State Sen. Judy Ward (R., Blair), who is advocating for a bill that would give coroners a bigger role in the crisis.
“There’s a discrepancy in the numbers,” Charles E. Kiessling Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association and coroner in Lycoming County, said Thursday. “I’m not saying there’s something going on…. I’m not a conspiracy theory guy. But accuracy is important.”
It’s a matter of public safety, Kiessling said.
. . .
For weeks, coroners have said their relationships with first responders, funeral directors, and county officials allow them to properly handle investigations where the presence of COVID-19 is unconfirmed — whether the death occurs at home or a care facility.
Despite coroners’ claims that they are well equipped to manage probable cases and legally obligated to be notified of suspected COVID-19 deaths, the Health Department hasn’t budged, insisting the majority of deaths caused by the virus do not need to be reported to a coroner.
“This is why I’m so upset,” Kiessling said. “Our job is to investigate.… We do this every day.”
He’s right. If we’re going to be told constantly how important it is to “trust the science,” the science should be, well, trustworthy. And it hasn’t been.
How are we supposed to know how to handle ourselves if we don’t even know what’s going on? And how are we going to know what’s going on if the DOH isn’t willing to use all the resources made to them?
And again I ask, what was the freaking point?
Probable cases make up <2% of total cases + give us an idea if something is happening in an area that needs investigation.
We rely on CONFIRMED case counts to make data driven decisions. As we work to move regions from red to yellow, we use confirmed data to base decisions.
— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) April 23, 2020
The state’s DOH emphasizes on Twitter that they “rely on CONFIRMED case counts to make data driven decisions.”
So why bother including the unconfirmed ones? I don’t want to be overly cynical, but I can only come up with one reason why someone might want to make COVID seem worse than it is, and surprise, it’s politically biased.
Are we honestly at a point where people are making decisions to mislead the public and make an already crappy situation seem even WORSE just because it might make President Trump look bad? Are there people out there who are disappointed that the fatality rate isn’t higher?
I guess one positive outcome of this whole debacle is that public trust in coroners is about to skyrocket.
