https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1247672477498724352?s=20
So, I think in this country we've taken a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks. Prior to that when there wasn't testing in January and February that's a very different situation and unknown.
There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem some countries are recording as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now we are still recording it and we will I mean the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to market as COVID-19 infection the intent is right now that those if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.
— Dr. Birx
Oh, boy, the data's going to be an absolute mess. Start with the fact that we probably had some number of Covid 19 deaths before we started paying attention, and now add in that we're counting as Covid 19 deaths anyone who died while having the disease, despite other co-morbidities.
The decisions on how to categorize such deaths is not easy, I am quite sure (I think that's safe to say despite not being an expert in medicine). And in fact it may come down ultimately to a value judgement, rather than being based in a wholly objective scientific determination about how to categorize people, simply because the latter is actually beyond the bounds of what science can do for us (as I keep saying, science is usually not able to direct policy decisions, and how to count the deaths is a policy decision). Therefore, I am not criticizing the choices, just noting them.
Add onto that that New York is reportedly counting home deaths as Corvid 19 deaths when they are suspected, despite no testing. Well, some of them probably are. Some probably aren't. How many of each?
So there's variance in how data is being reported (both in the U.S. and between countries), which diminishes the reliability of it. I'm not criticizing anyone; this is just the messy reality of how these things tend to go.
Researchers are going to work hard in the coming years to try to tease out best estimates of the number of deaths and infected.