New CDC COVID-19 Death Rate Explained

The CDC released information that shows 6% of the people who died from the coronavirus had only COVID-19 listed as their cause of death on their death certificate. While the announcement clearly states the remaining 94% still died from COVID-19, but had additional health conditions listed on their death certificate, people are still misunderstanding this statement. 

I have seen multiple posts concerning the CDC’s statement, claiming the agency hid the truth from us and COVID-19 is not as big a threat as the CDC and media made it seem. 

One of the posts I came across stated this:

“This week, the CDC quietly updated the death count of Covid 19 to admit that only 6% of all the 161,392 deaths recorded in the United States ACTUALLY died from covid.

That’s 9,682 deaths.

9,682 deaths.

In a country of 327 million.

That’s .0000296%

The other 94% had 2-3 EXISTING comorbidities that actually caused their death and 148,083 of the 161,392 deaths- 90% were over 55 years of age.

So of the people who died, 94% died from serious illnesses- not from covid. And the overwhelming majority were elderly too.”

The issue with this post is that it is twisting the truth to fit their narrative, which is dangerous and reckless. Misleading statements like this will encourage people to quit wearing masks, social distancing or taking any other precautions to prevent the spread of  COVID-19. 

The Explanation

From the beginning, health experts have said that if you are 55+ years old or have underlying health conditions, you are more likely to die from COVID-19. It compromises your immune system, complicating any underlying health condition you may already have, increasing your risk of dying.

So, let’s say I went out to a party where 200 people attended and I contracted COVID-19 without knowing it yet. I then go to the grocery store where this older lady with cancer is shopping as well and we are not wearing masks. That lady then contracts COVID-19 and goes to the hospital. Since she already had cancer and is older, COVID-19 can complicate her condition and kill her. Her death certificate would then have two causes of death listed, COVID-19 and cancer. She would then be included with the 94% of people who didn’t die solely from COVID-19. 

COVID-19 can also cause many of the secondary causes of death such as respiratory failure, hypertensive diseases, cardiac arrhythmia,  pneumonia, adult respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lower respiratory diseases. So, someone who was perfectly healthy could contract COVID-19, which could lead to secondary health conditions that contribute to their death and would be coded into the death certificate.

My Opinion

When you are scrolling through social media and see a bold claim made, do not immediately assume that post contains the whole truth. Posts like the one I came across are twisting the truth to fit their narrative, and then posting it to persuade people to spread that narrative and assuming they won’t do their own research on the topic. Sadly, a lot of the time people do not fact check or do further research on posts like that, which then contributes to the amount of fake news that circulates the internet.