CDC Tells Hospitals To List COVID as Cause of Death Even if You're Just Assuming or It Only Contribu

[txradioguy]

The problem with making informed decisions about coronavirus is that we don’t have a whole lot of data on it at the moment.

The data that we do have, meanwhile, could end up being terminally skewed, particularly the data that’s been coming out of China.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on determining COVID-19 as a cause of death isn’t going to help those numbers.

Issued March 24, the guidance tells hospitals to list COVID-19 as a cause of death regardless of whether or not there’s actual testing to confirm that’s the case.

Instead, even if the coronavirus was just a contributing factor or if it’s “assumed to have caused or contributed to death,” it can be listed as the primary cause.

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, or ICD, has established the code U07.1 for death by coronavirus infection. There’s a secondary code, U07.2, “for clinical or epidemiological diagnosis of COVID-19 where a laboratory confirmation is inconclusive or not available,” according to the CDC guidance.

“Because laboratory test results are not typically reported on death certificates in the U.S., NCHS is not planning to implement U07.2 for mortality statistics.”

Therein lies the problem.

“The underlying cause depends upon what and where conditions are reported on the death certificate. However, the rules for coding and selection of the underlying cause of death are expected to result in COVID- 19 being the underlying cause more often than not,” the guidelines read.

“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death. Certifiers should include as much detail as possible based on their knowledge of the case, medical records, laboratory testing, etc.,” the guidance continued.

https://www.westernjournal.com/cdc-tells-hospitals-list-covid-cause-death-even-just-assuming-contributed/?fbclid=IwAR1x5NiMJWMjhsDmT_U7CSyDo6E6h89kj445SKKFQ4GYpOJHY3waIAoXq04

[240B]

That is what I thought weeks ago.
People die all the time, for any number of reasons.
It would be easy and lazy to rule them all COVID.
But then again, Why not?

[Polly Ticks]

When all is said and done, it will be interesting to see if there are fewer deaths from the flu this season as previous (pre-COVID) trends would indicate.  So many of the symptoms are similar enough between the two that I would think it would be very easy to assume a flu death was actually a COVID death and code it as such based on that new CDC guideline.

[truth_seeker]

A lot of hindsight.

IOW if the final decision makers knew then, what they know now---they might have made different decisions.

China is blaming the US (unjustly).

The US ought to be livid at China, not at Trump for honestly trying to minimized loss of human life.

Medicine is intended to be conservative, in practice.

[Fishrrman]

Sumthin' tells me that there aren't that many autopsies being done on people presumed to have died as a result of COVID-19.

Not enough time.
Not enough manpower.
And too much risk involved, in any case.