COVID-19 Death
Reuters Connect

As the COVID-19 death toll in the United States continues to swell, some people believe that the tally is overcounted, according to a recently published article.

Number of Death Toll in the United States

The United States still leads the world as having the highest number of COVID-19 cases and the death toll. At present, the country has more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and a death toll of more than 90,000 according to worldometers.

This means that if an average of 1,200 COVID-19 deaths is recorded every day just in 75 days or from March until today. This is the highest number ever recorded by countries around the world with confirmed cases of the virus.

However, many people believed that this tally is very inconsistent because some states in the country include those who died not due to the virus but because of other pre-existing medical conditions like cancer, chronic diseases, heart attack, and more.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines on how to include the deaths in the country as part of the COVID-19 tally. In fact, there are some cases where a presumed COVID-19 death was included in the list.

Presumed COVID-19 Deaths that Were Included in the Tally

Daniel Spitz, Macomb County, Mich., Chief Medical Examiner, said last month in an article: "I think a lot of clinicians are putting that condition (COVID-19) on death certificates when it might not be accurate because they died with coronavirus and not of coronavirus."

Spitz added: "Are they entirely accurate? No. Are people dying of it? Absolutely. Are people dying of other things and coronavirus is maybe getting credit? Yeah, probably."

Moreover, Spitz also believed that many people died due to COVID-19 but were not recorded because they were not given a chance to be diagnosed and treated due to their immigration status, or they were turned away by some hospitals because they are asymptomatic.

Additionally, there is also inconsistency of data between the tallied COVID-19 deaths. Johns Hopkins University has recorded 85,974 on Friday while the CDC has recorded 83, 947 on the same day. This means that there is a difference of 2,027 deaths.

President Trump and COVID-19 Task Force Pushing are Pushing the Guidelines

The inconsistency of death toll in the country has led President Donald Trump and the U.S. COVID-19 Task Force to urge the CDC to revise its guidelines most especially on the way on how to count deaths related to the new coronavirus.

According to a recently published article, Pres. Trump privately questioned the validity of COVID-19 deaths in the country as it has surpassed 80,000 on Wednesday. He suggested that there might be a problem in the inflation of the number.

Meanwhile, Deborah Birx, the task force response coordinator, has urged the CDC not to include in the tally those are presumed to have the virus but were not diagnosed and those who did not have a confirmed lab result. She also said not to include those who have the virus but died due to other pre-existing medical conditions like cancer, chronic diseases, and more.

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