The truth about the COVID-19 numbers

As the number of COVID cases and deaths continue to rise in our area and across the nation…more than more people are beginning to question the validity of those figures.

Americans have been told since the very first COVID-19 cases appeared in the U-S in January of this year…a 35-year-old Snohomish County man who recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan, China…that the most susceptible to the virus were older people with underlying health issues.

In the Tri-Cities, so far, all of the COVID-19 deaths have been in people over the age of 60, and have been associated with long-term or senior-living care facilities.

"So, we are not necessarily fully tracking if they had underlying health conditions because being in that age group puts you in a high-risk category", Rick Dawson, Benton-Franklin Health District.

When pressed, Dawson noted they take their information from the official death certificate.

"If that is listed as the cause of death, that is what we will report. If it is not the cause of death, it will not be listed as a COVID-positive fatality in our community", Dawson added.

So, let's take a look at the death certificates.

To date, all of the COVID-related deaths have happened either in a care facility or a hospital, and the doctor on duty fills out the documentation.

"This whole process of the death certificate things is an evolving situation", says Benton County Coroner William Leach. "Because, initially, there was not a lot of clear-cut information on how the death certificate should be completed from the Department of Health, as far as the hierarchy, and where the positive tests or the presumptive-positive tests, or the proximity of the person passing away to a COVID-related person was to be placed on the death certificate."

Leach says state guidelines recently changed to make even a "presumptive" COVID death, count towards the Coronavirus fatality total.

"They have a COVID-positive test, but they still passed away from something related to the COVID death, say an Acute Myocardial Infarction, does that COVID diagnosis still go on the death certificate, and ultimately the answer is yes", Leach adds.

Some argue that practice does not accurately depict the true story of the COVID-19 Virus in our community…causing the numbers to be inflated.

But, Leach disagrees.

"I don't think they are being inflated at all", Leach notes. "I think that if COVID is a direct causation of an underlying illness, lets use Pneumonia, then that's absolutely a COVID-related death."

He says the situation is more akin to the onset of AIDS cases in the U-S in the 1980s, in which all fatalities were attributed to HIV or AIDS in the beginning, but later evolved into some patients dying of "AIDS-related complications".

And we may not reached that point with this virus for some time.