Shocking Expose Proves Thousands Of COVID-19 Deaths Have Gone Uncounted In The US: Live Updates
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sun, 04/05/2020
Summary:
NY reports first drop in daily deaths since outbreak began
FT shows how US has become COVID-19s “epicenter”
NY hospitalizations drop
Italy follows New York with another promising drop in deaths
France also reports a drop in deaths
UK reports biggest jump in new cases as Queen speech about to air
2 Walmart workers die in store near Chicago
Louisiana warns it will run out of ventilators in five days
India bans export of Trump’s ‘miracle’ coronavirus drug
NYT exposes massive undercounting of COVID-19 deaths in the US
Tokyo reports yet another jump in new COVID-19 cases
Queen Elizabeth plans special televised address to Britain, only the 4th during her reign
Australia launches criminal probe into Carnival Cruises
COVID-19 deaths in Japan pass 100
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Update (1445ET): Two reporters from the New York Times purport to have found evidence that health officials, often at the local or county level, are dramatically undercounting coronavirus deaths in the US. Citing information and documents provided by “doctors, hospital officials, public health experts and medical examiners,” among others, the reporters claim that potentially thousands of deaths have gone uncounted, meaning the total is probably closer to 20k – or beyond – than the roughly 10k (9,180, per JHU) reported so far.
Unfortunately, since the patients have died, there will be few – if any – opportunities for these discrepancies to be rectified, if coronavirus isn’t listed as a cause of death, something that requires a positive test.
Given the shortage of tests around the US, living patients have typically been prioritized over the deceased, even as counting posthumous deaths is important in helping officials get the accurate data they need to fight the virus.
A lot of the most compelling anecdotes in the report came from coroners, and from families like this one, per the NYT:
As the coronavirus outbreak began sweeping across the country last month, Julio Ramirez, a 43-year-old salesman in San Gabriel, Calif., came home from a business trip and began feeling unwell, suffering from a fever, cough and body aches. By the next day, he had lost his sense of taste and smell.
His wife, Julie Murillo, took him to an urgent care clinic several days later, where he was so weak he had to be pushed in a wheelchair. Doctors prescribed antibiotics, a cough syrup and gave him a chest X-ray, but they did not test for the coronavirus, she said. Just over a week after he returned from his trip and not long after President Trump declared a national emergency over the outbreak, Ms. Murillo found him dead in his bed.
“I kept trying to get him tested from the beginning,” Ms. Murillo said in an interview. “They told me no.”
Frustrated, Ms. Murillo enlisted friends to call the C.D.C. on her behalf, asking for her husband to be tested for the coronavirus post-mortem. Then she hired a private company to conduct an autopsy; the owner pleaded for a coronavirus test from local and federal authorities.
On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Murillo received a call from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, she said. The health department had gone to the funeral home where her husband’s body was resting and taken a sample for a coronavirus test. He tested positive.
A spokesman for the health department did not respond to questions about Mr. Ramirez, and it was not clear whether any systematic post-mortem testing was being conducted beyond his case.
Even Johns Hopkins University agreed that deaths are almost certainly being undercounted: “We definitely think there are deaths that we have not accounted for,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. JHU has been tracking the virus from the beginning, maintaining an online database that has become one of the most trusted and widely-cited sources of data on deaths and cases by the press around the world.
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Update (1400ET): Some more encouraging news out of Europe: Like Italy before it, France reported an encouraging drop in deaths, with 357, lower than the count from the last two days. It raised the death toll to 8,078, but still qualified as a “significant” drop, according to the French Ministry of Health. France also reported 1,873 new cases of COVID-19, raising its total to 68,605 cases.
As the Queen prepared to deliver a historic speech, the UK reported a 5,903 new cases of the virus, a record increase for one day, bringing its total to 47,806, while another 621 deaths brought its death toll to 4,934. Daily testing rose to record 12,334.
In Ireland, 21 more people infected with the coronavirus have died, bringing the total number of deaths in Ireland to 158 . There have been 390 new cases reported Sunday, bringing its total to 4,994.
In a story that once again exposes the dangerous risks being taken by “essential” workers, many of whom are low-paid hourly employees who work retail, CNN reported Sunday that two workers at a Chicago-area Walmart store have died from the novel coronavirus, the company confirmed Sunday, the first deaths among Wal-Mart workers since the pandemic began. It once again highlights these risks, which have been exacerbated by the shortages in PPE that have made these products virtually inaccessible for store workers.
“We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of two associates at our Evergreen Park store, and we are mourning along with their families,” an emailed statement from the company reads. Walmart in its statement did not provide the workers’ names, ages or how long they had been with the company. It is also unclear exactly when the two workers passed away.
The two associates had not been in the Evergreen Park store “for more than a week,” the company said, but of course, there’s no way to guarantee that others weren’t exposed.
Finally, in Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards Louisiana’s governor says state will probably run out of ventilators in 5 days.
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BS.ALERT. Scamdemic 2.0. Which magic test do they use to identify specifically Covid 19? That’s a catchy name, almost as catchy as mercenarydemic ISIS. Which test is it that identifies Covid 19 specifically? Identifying “Corona virus” is easy, because there are thousands of strains of it which are medically benign. It’s called the common cold. Last time I checked there’s no cure and no vaccine. I’m a truck driver and have talked with many hundreds of people in 20 different states in the last month, and have failed to identify even one person aware of anyone, who knows anyone, who knows anyone, sick, dying, or dead. Hmmmm….. Wake the fuck up cowardly Amuricans and realize whom the enemy is, and it isn’t a virus. Plenty of you are going die – by mass starvation. You don’t need toilet paper when you haven’t eaten because you’re hiding in your closets. Why is Walmart open but all the mom and pop stores closed? Why is McDonald’s and Burger Corona still open but all mom and pop shops ordered closed nefariously? Every dumbshit on the planet will test positive for Corona virus, it’s as common and ineffectual as US.Cuntgress men/women, and just as low. Ask the Germans – they don’t check heart attack victims for Corona and claim they died of covid19. Hmmm. Well I will say this: this may be a Godsend for all of the sloth grotesquely obese pigs in this country that shovel disgusting pseudofood down their gross gullets by the ton and reduce the obesity pandemic. ‘Oh Sally, I see you’ve dwindled down to a ton, you’re looking great’.