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Why Did New York’s Coronavirus Death Count Just Spike?
Townhall.com ^ | April 15, 2020 | Larry O'Connor

Posted on 04/15/2020 11:33:33 AM PDT by Kaslin

"It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." It may have been Stalin and it may have been Napoleon. It may have been Boss Tweed. Regardless of the original source, this truism describes government corruption and manipulation to perfection.

Even in the face of a global pandemic and an unprecedented government-ordered economic shutdown, politicians are using their power to corrupt vital needed data regarding the Chinese coronavirus and its deadly toll on Americans.

The latest escapade comes from America's "ground zero" for COVID-19 infections, New York, where the death tally just surpassed 10,000. Or did it?

The New York Post explains how previously unreported deaths are now, suddenly being included in the city's death count, and the reasons deserve scrutiny:

More than 10,000 people have died of coronavirus in New York City, including over 3,700 cases where someone never made it to a hospital, the city’s Health Department announced Tuesday.

The Big Apple’s new death toll is 10,367. That figure combines the 6,589 victims who tested positive for the virus plus another 3,778 who were never tested, but whose death certificates list the cause of death as “COVID-19 or an equivalent,” according to city Health Department data from March 11 through April 13.The Post goes on to explain that the victims of probable coronavirus seem to center mostly on individuals 75 years or older, according to the NYC Health Department.

The newly revised death count of 10,367 could very well be accurate. And, of course, it could be wrong. The previous number of 6,589 was the official number right up until the moment it wasn't because government officials decided to widen their definition of a coronavirus death.

The problem - and this is a pretty big problem - is that we are making extraordinary and unprecedented decisions that infringe on our dearly held individual liberties and are stifling our once-burgeoning economy. We Americans are grudgingly willing to make these painful concessions on a temporary basis in the spirit of protecting our fellow citizens from infection or death. But when we acquiesce to these demands on our freedom, don't we deserve sound and reliable data to justify the concessions?

Instead of solid, reliable data, our leaders have constantly moved the goalposts and even the rules of the game. The models shift, the predictions are memory-holed and now even something as seemingly solid as an accurate tally of how many people have died as a result of this virus is being fudged. And it's being fudged in the middle of the game.

It's hard for a cynic (and these days Americans who are relying on critical information from our government and from the news media should be radically cynical) to assume this shift in data is being made not for scientific or public policy purposes, but to satisfy a political agenda.

In the Trump era, hard data is tough to come by when it pertains to information that could hurt Donald Trump's presidency and legacy. There is no doubt that a liberal protocol for counting a COVID-19 death will serve to increase the total number and will be used as a political weapon against President Trump. That's just a fact.

Two and a half years after Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, we still don't have an accurate death toll because the methodology for determining those numbers was radically modified for the first time in history. And it was modified just as President Trump was touting the relatively low initial death toll as compared with other, comparable storms in American history.

The Puerto Rico death toll immediately became a political cudgel and the media used the new weapon forged with unprecedented death count protocols to hammer the president. Ironically, if many Puerto Ricans died as a result of government negligence post-Hurricane Maria, it appears to have been the fault of the local Puerto Rican officials and not the Trump Administration.

This January, it was discovered that political corruption in Puerto Rico withheld federal aid from people suffering from the hurricane in the weeks after the storm hit the tiny island. But the same media who were making the case that the inflated hurricane death toll was grounds for Trump's impeachment mostly ignored the story. They were too busy covering their latest reason for impeaching the president to be bothered with it.

Direct tallies of individuals who are conclusively found to have perished due to the coronavirus should be executed in a consistent and logical way. If the deceased individual tests positive for the virus and their death came about due to symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19, then they should count. If a person dies in their home and they are over the age of 75, and there is no indication they were exposed to the virus, they should not count. Sadly, in New York, they now do count.

How many people have died as a direct result of the Chinese coronavirus? Sadly, that depends on who's doing the counting.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; covid19; deathtoll
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To: Kaslin

These two scumbag criminals running the show are RESPONSIBLE. They both need to resign


61 posted on 04/15/2020 12:50:28 PM PDT by ronnie raygun
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To: sevlex
It’s who counts the death.

They went full "General Westmoreland"

62 posted on 04/15/2020 12:51:46 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Sacajaweau
We have the data we have. The NY Times data has been recorded using the same protocol all along. Everything else is conjecture. That is how science works. We constantly re-examine hypotheses when new data comes in. The provenance of the data sets are important. With all its limitations, the NYT data set is about as good as it gets. If you want to learn more Udacity has a nice, free introduction to Data Science course here.
63 posted on 04/15/2020 1:00:17 PM PDT by RetiredScientist
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To: Kaslin

It is quite obvious that the numbers are being manipulated and only certain portions of stats are being shown. My local news in print,digital and TV is absolutely unwatchable. It is ALL about new cases and death count cobbled together. If this information alone were to dictate what has to be done going forward,America would be shuttered until the next Democrat were elected as President.


64 posted on 04/15/2020 1:54:20 PM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: Macoozie

If they run out of dead people they can always go the democrat voters rolls.


65 posted on 04/15/2020 2:07:58 PM PDT by sanjuanbob (Yes, I CAN take a joke /s)
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To: DiogenesLamp

Do you think so? Cause i have no idea.
A couple sites i checked out says about 145 people die per day in NYC.
75 (aprox days of pandemic) x 145 (deaths) = 10,875.


66 posted on 04/15/2020 2:18:07 PM PDT by Leep (We can go to the grocery store but we can't go to work?)
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To: Liz

All that information there for the MSM to share with the sheeple, but no it’s Trump’s fault all these people are dying in NY. DeBlasio & this idiot Barbot telling people to ride the subway, go about your regular lives, as late as March 6. This vile Barbot, knows what’s happening in China, but is more concerned with labeling Trump a racist for stopping travel from China. So she’s encouraging Chinese people and other New Yorkers to get together on Feb 9 and have a huge party celebrating the new lunar year.

There’s no doubt that this reckless behavior by these two buffoons helped the virus to take a quicker hold in the city. How many people were infected before March 6 rising subways, attending larger celebrations?

And the MSM is only blaming Trump???


67 posted on 04/15/2020 2:28:08 PM PDT by Beatthedrum
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To: Beatthedrum

Liberals take NO responsibility for anything they do.

Like the Clintons-—they get away with murder, flipping it off, saying.....”Oh, that’s old news. Let’s move on.”

An outrage.


68 posted on 04/15/2020 3:12:35 PM PDT by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: ChronicMA

“Without the Wuhan flu we would have had 2,750,000 people die in the US this year. What will the actual number be... maybe 2,850,000???”
It isn’t so trivial if you or your wife or parents are one of the 100,000. And, the lockdown is to make sure it’s 100,000 not 500,000.
Italy has a population of 60mm and 22,000 deaths and surely there will be more. Our population is 5.5 times greater. 5.5 times 30,000 = 165,000. And they locked down the entire country 5 weeks ago.
NYC has 10,000 deaths in a city of 10mm. That’s .1%. .1% of the US is 330,000. I’m not taking a 1 in 1000 chance of dying next week, but I guess you think it’s ok for you. Luckily you aren’t in charge of the country and probably not in charge of anything thank God.


69 posted on 04/15/2020 3:13:46 PM PDT by brookwood (Obama said you could keep your plan - Sanders says higher taxes will improve the weather)
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To: sanjuanbob

Good point......Dems are in the hospitals as we type....all those corono patients will be voting Democrap in Nov.


70 posted on 04/15/2020 3:14:13 PM PDT by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: Leep
Do you think so? Cause i have no idea. A couple sites i checked out says about 145 people die per day in NYC. 75 (aprox days of pandemic) x 145 (deaths) = 10,875.

It's looking like New Yorkers started dying around March 14th, which would put it around 30 days, rather than 75 days.

Also, the number I just looked up said 14 thousand New York deaths, though i'm not sure if it's New York City, or New York state.

14,000 in 30 days = 466 per day.

That's about 3X what you said might be the norm for New York City.

71 posted on 04/15/2020 3:30:03 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no oither sovereignty."/)
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To: DiogenesLamp

The 145 deaths per day (do not include deaths by virus). I chose 75 days because that is roughly how long the pandemic has been.
I was calculating how many people have died (not from virus) for the past 75 days.


72 posted on 04/15/2020 3:41:17 PM PDT by Leep (We can go to the grocery store but we can't go to work?)
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To: SkyDancer

I think their buying dead bodies from China


73 posted on 04/15/2020 6:23:50 PM PDT by Keyhopper (Indians had bad immigration laws)
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