America has been on a virtual martial law shutdown for months now with no end in sight, based on unreliable if not inaccurate data about the lethality of Covid-19.
This is a never-ending argument, but the number of people who died from Covid-19 now is as imprecise as it was months ago when this debate started. At the heart of the debate is whether the patient died with Covid-19 or from Covid-19.
Not the same thing.
The crucial difference was highlighted months ago when Dr. Ngozi Ezike, an internist and pediatrician serving as the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, tried to clarify the distinction between dying with or from Covid-19. At a press conference with Illinois Gov. J. B Pritzker, she responded to a question (see video below):
I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. The definition is very simplistic. It means, at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. That means that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live and then you were also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. Technically, even if you died of clear alternate cause but you still had COVID at the time it is still listed as a COVID death. Everyone who’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death but they had COVID at the time of their death. I hope that’s helpful.
As if people were dying of a cold when they had one when they died.
Blithe Spirit 