At Least 22 States Count ‘Probable’ COVID Cases or Deaths in Their Totals

Epoch Times ^ | 07/21/2020 | Peter Svab

[SeekAndFind]

At least 22 states count in their COVID-19 statistics cases or deaths that haven’t been confirmed with a diagnostic test. These “probable” cases are determined based on symptoms and other general characteristics. While useful to track for epidemiologists, such cases add noise to the national data as some states report them and some don’t. Also, different states started reporting such cases at different times, making data comparisons with earlier periods difficult.

COVID-19 is caused by novel coronavirus that emerged in China in 2019 and has since spread around the world. The United States has seen over 3.8 million cases and over 140,000 related deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The problem is, different states report statistics on the epidemic differently.

Some states, such as Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia include in their totals probable cases and deaths.

The nonprofit Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) instructed health authorities in April (pdf) to define probable cases in people with at least some symptoms (such as a headache and a sore throat) who belong to “a risk cohort” or have had contact with people who’ve tested positive, such as by residing “in an area with sustained, ongoing community transmission.”

Probable deaths are usually defined as a person dying at least partly due to an illness that looked like COVID, but hasn’t been confirmed by a laboratory test (which can be conducted postmortem).

Some states, such as Arkansas, New Jersey, and Washington, only include probable deaths, but not probable infections.

Some states, it appears, only include probable infections, but not deaths. Maine and Kansas may be in this category, their COVID websites indicate. The Epoch Times contacted all 50 states and the District of Columbia, but only 33 responded to the inquiries. Maine and Kansas didn’t respond.

[palmer]

Two things counter that narrative. First the provisional deaths have dropped in the most recent data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm There are now 87,147 excess deaths since Feb 1. Just multiply total deaths by 0.06 since deaths are 106% of expected. Just a few days ago it was 108% and 113k excess deaths. Note that data is provisional because there are deaths that aren't reported yet. It takes two weeks up to eight weeks or more to get the full data.

Second therei is data that includes an estimate to fill in for the missing data (light blue bars): https://public.tableau.com/profile/dataviz8737#!/vizhome/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_07152020/WithAndWithoutWeighting which shows a drop below expected deaths. Even with ordinary deaths misreported as COVID, there are fewer deaths overall. There's simply no way they can cover up that drop in the near future no matter how much misreporting they do about the cause of death.

[Vendome]

As far as the “assays that detect the 2019-nCOV that are currently under development. Yeah, just a few.

For a test that is supposed to be so definitive and accurate, there sure are a great many firms in development of testing for the diagnosis of COVID-19

Actually, 750(it was 746 yesterday) of them the diagnostic pipeline at the time of this post as a matter of fact. https://bit.ly/3clw4Za

If the testing on this is so definitive, why are 746 companies still developing testing for it?

Possibly because they still have not effectively isolated the virus and still don’t know what exactly it is that they are looking for.

Or could it be that it is extremely difficult to detect this SARS-CoV-2 virus because it is easily defeated by the immune system? (Note: SARS-CoV-2 virus. Hmmm…thought this was something so novel we have not seen it before? When then is it so similar to the SARS virus that it is called SARS-CoV-2 then? That would indicate that it is similar in nature to a virus we are well aware of so similar to a known virus that it is labeled as -2.

Gee, maybe not so novel after all huh? No more novel than any other mutated SARS virus which is quite common with RNA viruses like this SARS-CoV-2 virus btw. All RNA viruses mutate regularly which is why these virus vaccines are so ineffective, their target changes so quickly.

Or possibly that it is so immensely difficult to test an individual for a specific virus when the samples are always contaminated with all kinds of germs including bacteria, other viral strains and other DNA/RNA bearing tissues?

[Vendome]

But what do the manufacturers say about the COVID diagnostic test? How about this gem from Creative Diagnostics, a popular test manufacturer:

This product is intended for the detection of 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The detection result of this product is only for clinical reference, and it should not be used as the only evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment. https://bit.ly/2KnJ4kP

In other words: Don’t use the test result alone to diagnose infection or disease.

Pretty confident about their testing huh?

Perhaps that is why the CDC includes “probable cases” in their statistical counts:

What is a COVID-19 probable case?

A probable case or death is defined by

Meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or

Meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or Meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19. https://bit.ly/3bdziMV

Translation: You don’t even have to have “confirmatory laboratory testing performed” in order for the case to be considered a COVID-19 case.

I guess that could be helpful to the hospitals who have had their cash cows of elective surgery eliminated (80% of many hospitals incomes) and are losing money now.

They could just drop a medicare patient into the “probable COVID-19 category” and go from a standard Medicare admit of $4,600 to a COVID admit billable for $13,000 now. About a 3X billable increase.

And heck, if they can get them on a ventilator with a COVID diagnosis, the Medicare admit jumps to $39,000, over an 8-fold increase!

I guess its a conspiracy theory to imagine that hospitals losing money due to the contraction of their scheduled surgery income would begin to amazingly turn up more COVID cases and put some of these people with respiratory issues on ventilators as well.

Yeah…might not have anything to do with increasing revenues I guess since we know that ALL hospitals and doctors operate with full integrity and complete concern for ALL patients.

Uh, interested in a bridge in Brooklyn real cheap?

But hey, it’s all just b.s. right doc?

[FamiliarFace]

I’m pretty sure I read that flu deaths are only counted from October through March in any given year. I think that was on the CDC website somewhere when I was tooling around on it not too long ago.

[monkeyshine]

How hard is it to just create a 3rd column? Positive, Probable, Negative?

[SuperLuminal]

Yep... It’s all about money... The taxpayers stolen or misappropriated money...

[monkeyshine]

Of course it’s money.

[spacejunkie2001]

how convenient...just reapportion them to covid and ... voila!

[radu]

I didn’t see TN mentioned but they count probable cases and deaths, though listed separately, in their daily totals.

They started counting them in May but didn’t start openly listing them separately on the health dept.’s site until June 12. Up til that point, you had to dig into their datasets to see it.

[ransomnote]

From the article: “None of the four most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, and New York) immediately responded to The Epoch Times’ inquiries.”

Gee, those are the current “hot spots”! What a coincidence!

[alamogal]

Not just TN..Texas counts probables too.

[radu]

They sure do. The video of the Commissioners Court a week or so ago, where it was explained how they were to do the counts, was an eye-opener. I sent the link to that out to folks on my email list and have been sending these FOX investigation links out as well.

[Svartalfiar]

Isn’t this how they count “flu” cases, which are lumped together with pneumonia cases, & the media pushes the fake total every year?

Close. Flu is lumped in with pneumonia and "influenza-like-illnesses", and then multiplied randomly to get the "Flu Deaths this year". If you actually get into the chart data the CDC pulls it from, 60M "flu deaths" is only 20M P&I deaths, which is 1000 confirmed flu and 19M pneumonia/flu-like. Way back in my post history are some links to some studies on this. Actual, confirmed flu deaths/infections usually need a 5-60x multiplier to got to the officially published flu numbers.

ChinaVirus is very similar, there's so many fake positives, false positives, common cold positives, etc etc. One person taking five tests just might end up counting as five separate 'cases'. Your long dead cat can potentially be counted as a case too. If you sign up online to get tested but never go, you just might end up with a positive "test".

[Svartalfiar]

And even out of the confirmed positives, how many of those have been deep tested to make sure it is the ChinaVirus popping hot, and not one of the common cold coronaviri?