Thread by @Andre__Damon

⭐ Exclusive interview⭐

The "only consistent, reliable and actionable dataset at the federal level" for tracking #covid19 deaths ended Wednesday, a US health official said.

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wsws.org/en/articles/20…

On Wednesday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officially ended its system for hospitals to report COVID-19 deaths daily to the federal government, amid a worldwide campaign to reduce the reporting of COVID-19 deaths and cases.

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https://twitter.com/Andre__Damon/status/1484700902757961728

The same day as the US federal government stopped collecting figures on hospital deaths, the UK government announced plans to end reporting of the UK’s COVID-19 death toll by Easter.
inews.co.uk/news/politics/…

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The end of hospital death reporting has been met with a wall of silence in the media. But among health experts, there is broad opposition to this measure, which would slash the most up-to-date metrics for assessing the current state of COVID-19 deaths and hospital capacity.

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The move to end HHS death reporting “incomprehensible,” one federal health official said. “It is the only consistent, reliable and actionable dataset at the federal level,” the official said. “Ninety-nine percent of hospitals report one hundred percent of the data every day.”

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“Deaths are reported by the counties/states but the process is very slow and many coroners are actually not wanting to cite COVID as the reason, while hospitals rely on diagnoses," the official said.
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The HHS reporting system being ended by the federal government "is also timely as it is every day and many states have a delay anyway but now many are reporting less often,” the official continued.
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The HHS dataset “is normalized to a specific hospital and can he compared to other data like capacity, number of admissions, ages of admissions, number in ICU, number of ventilated and a death count—not just for COVID but also influenza," the official said.

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Stating that there existed a “correlation” between the calls for ending COVID-19 data reporting and the drive to make life with COVID-19 the “new normal,” the official warned, “I don’t know any scientists who want to have less data.”

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