Trump & Coronavirus Task Force Urge CDC To Change How COVID-19 Deaths Are Counted
Per The Daily Beast, President Donald Trump and members of the coronavirus task force are urging CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) officials to change how COVID-19 deaths are being counted. The revision they’re looking for would lead to less deaths being reported than usually totaled..
While he’s previously raised suspicion over the validity of the number of fatalities in the United States, which currently sits at over 80,000, per sources close to Trump, he again suggests that hospitals and morgues are incorrectly tallying and purposefully inflating their numbers.
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In a new request, the sources say Trump and the task force, specifically the team’s coordinator Deborah Birx, has urged CDC officials to exclude from their counting: 1) individuals who have not received confirmed lab results and are presumed to be positive, and 2) those who have the virus, but did not necessarily pass as a direct result of it.
Furthermore, sources at the CDC tell the publication that they are pushing back against the request, asserting that making the change would falsely skew the mortality rate, and add more pressure to state and local governments struggling to accurately account for all deaths during the pandemic.
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