Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst and columnist for the Washington Postsaid in a column Friday that doctors are ‘overcounting’ the number “COVID Deaths and Hospitalizations.”
Wen, who sometimes writes a column for the Washington Post on the pandemic, masking and other topics related to COVID, cited sources who said the most “Patients diagnosed with COVID are actually hospitalized for another illness.”
The article is titled, “We are counting too many COVID deaths and hospitalizations. That is a problem.” People on Twitter were upset by what Wen said and said it was “Two and a half years late.”
Wen began her column with some apparent skepticism about the CDC’s latest COVID-19 death statistics: “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are about 400 COVID deaths every day in the United States. At that rate, there would be nearly 150,000 deaths a year. But are these Americans dying of COVID or of COVID?”
BREAKING from Leana Wen at WaPo: “We are counting too many COVID deaths… Since every hospital patient is tested for COVID… for example, a victim of a gunshot wound or someone who has had a heart attack can test positive.”
Wow. Who would have thought that.https://t.co/utCoJSzH1a pic.twitter.com/cMAFsmfOy0
— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) January 13, 2023
That’s what the doctor said “Understanding this distinction is crucial to putting the ongoing toll of the coronavirus into perspective. Determining how likely it is that an infection will result in hospitalization or death helps people weigh their own risk.”
She spoke to two infectious disease experts, who told her they believed “the number of deaths attributed to COVID far exceeds the actual number of people dying from COVID.”
She mentioned the first and wrote: “Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and former president of the Georgia chapter of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, estimates that at his hospital, 90 percent of patients diagnosed with COVID are actually hospitalized for another illness .”
Dretler told the analyst, “Since every patient admitted to the hospital is tested for COVID, many are incidentally positive.” Wen pointed out that people with gunshot wounds or other serious illnesses often test positive for the virus. He then wrote, “If these people die, COVID can be listed on their death certificates along with the other diagnoses. But the coronavirus was not the main cause of their deaths and often played no role at all.”
Have a look at:
Dretler said this led to “inaccurate reporting” of COVID deaths and hospitalizations, but he said it was not done with “bad intentions”. He denied there was any “conspiracy” behind it to “exaggerate coronavirus numbers for nefarious intent”.
Wen also cited infectious disease doctor Shira Doron, who discovered that “In recent months, only about 30 percent of total COVID hospitalizations have been primarily attributed to the virus.” For example, in hospitals in Massachusetts, COVID was the leading cause of only 30 percent of hospitalizations.
Wen recounted Doron’s experience at Tufts Medical Center, writing: “For some days, she said, the proportion of those hospitalized due to COVID was only 10 percent of the total reported cases” who had COVID.
Wen added, “Doron acknowledges that there is a gray zone in the data where COVID may not be the primary cause of death, but may have contributed to it.”
Remember when @DrLeanaWen said:
“You have the option not to get vaccinated (the mRNA) if you want, but then YOU CANNOT GO PUBLIC” – I remember#VaccineDeath #FauciLiedPeopleDeceased #Covid pic.twitter.com/ljnhxlPbKP
— Winston (@19Goldstein84) January 14, 2023
Towards the end of her piece, Wen stated: “To be clear, if the number of COVID deaths turns out to be 30 percent of what is currently reported, that is still unacceptably high.”
Many people who read the article on Twitter seemed angry about it, saying they thought doctors had been calculating for years and Wen’s information was too late.
Epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Høeg responded to Wen’s piece, stating: “Spring 2021 [USA] had good evidence > 40% of children’s COVID admissions were incidental. 2021 Denmark announced they would distinguish with us from COVID hosp. COVID+ deaths in [Denmark] in 2022 [were] 60-70% incidentally.”
The doctor added, “Amazing how long it has taken the US to accept that this is a problem.” Senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy J. Michael Waller criticized the Washington Post for the column, saying: “Not too long ago, the Washington Post called us conspiracy theorists for saying things like this.”
TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATE, ashes @DrLeanaWen writes:
“The number of deaths attributed to covid far exceeds the actual number of people dying from covid.”https://t.co/DRvl3TRM4f
— Adrian Norman (@AdrianNormanDC) January 13, 2023
Author AJ Kay tweeted: “Well, yes… You would think seeing this in old media would provide a sense of justification or resolution for those of us who have been screaming about it since 2020, but in reality it is just annoyance, anger and sadness. The lies have done so much damage.”
Adam Creighton, a reporter for “The Australian,” tweeted: “People who said this a year ago were kicked off social media.” Jeffrey Tucker, president of the Brownstone Institute, tweeted: “This is not only true recently. It’s been true for three years! We really don’t know how many have actually died from COVID, which means even the CFR isn’t accurate.
Just follow us on Lee Daily for more news like this.
