Without looking into how they are classified, you wouldn't get a very good idea. For example, if someone dies in an auto crash but had tested positive for covid or antibodies, it's counted most places as a covid death. Also problematic is that the CDC has never been very good at counting so it has given great license for MEs, hospitals and physicians to cast a wide net. If that doesn't satisfy you, how about written statements from the chief investigator for the Fulton County's Medical Examiner's office, Dennis McGowan. He writes"
Over the 30+ years that I spent managing aspects of death investigation, I was always determined to uncover every piece of information that would lead to the filing of an accurate death certificate. That brings me to the big lie. Death certificates are pretty uniform in their structure, and they call for strict accuracy in listing the relevant details. There are five critical lines on a death certificate, each having its own contribution to the final conclusion.
The first (top) line is "Immediate Cause of Death." This is where the actual terminal event is recorded. This line is followed by three more, all labeled "Due To," where contributors to the immediate cause, in declining order, are listed. An example of this structure might be Immediate Cause listed as Cerebral Hemorrhage, and the first Due To line might be Gunshot Wound. Very direct. In the event that there are other contributors in the cascade of Due To notations, they would follow, in descending order. Finally, there is a line called "Other Significant Conditions," which serves as a catch-all for relevant, non-fatal items. In the example above, this line might read Severe Depression to explain why there was a gunshot wound to the head.
You can imagine how many death certificates I've seen in my career, but you can't imagine the number of death certificates that are being fraudulently tallied in this current pandemic. Someone in some bureaucrat's office decided that if COVID appears anywhere on a death certificate, it is counted as a COVID death, even if it isn't. If COVID is on the Immediate Cause line, it is clearly a COVID death. If it is on the first Due To line, it might be a COVID death in a person with a significant comorbidity. If it is on the second or third Due To line, it may or may not have a role in the death, but if it appears in the Other Significant Conditions line, it is not a COVID death, yet it is being counted as one. An example is the fellow who crashed his motorcycle and tested positive for COVID. This is fraud masquerading as science.
How many actual COVID deaths have there been? Who knows? Last year, when the publicly advertised number hit 200,000, there was speculation that the actual number could be as low as 10 or 12 thousand. Today, just based on statistical probability, it is certainly under the 500,000 reported in the media, and maybe a lot less. Two publicly reported examples of this fraud are the fellow in Florida who died in a motorcycle crash but had been COVID-positive earlier and was certified as a COVID death, and then the two gunshot deaths in Colorado that were called COVID deaths because the decedents had been positive weeks before. One study that has been released that has scientific integrity was from Minnesota, where the COVID positive rate was determined to be overstated by 40%.
Whether you believe this or not is your issue, not mine.
