Covid death count challenged by CDC

 Red States:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a debate over the accuracy of the COVID-19 death totals has existed, with the attempt being to delineate who died directly from the virus vs. who died while having an incidental infection.

That debate emerged because there have been numerous examples of people wrongly labeled as dying of the coronavirus when they clearly died by other means and would have done so regardless of infection. Typically, when a limited dive into the data produces such results (such as just looking at Palm Beach County), you can bet there are a lot more examples out there that just haven’t been discovered.

Yet, for the better part of two years, any discussion of such miscategorizations resulted in a litany of derogatory responses. Either you were a conspiracy theorist, weren’t taking the pandemic seriously, or both. The press wrote countless articles insisting that the totals were completely accurate, especially during the Trump administration. The Washington Post even managed to call Sen. Joni Ernst, who is about as milquetoast of a Republican as you can get, a conspiracy theorist for asking questions. Meanwhile, social media companies would ban people for suggesting the totals were inaccurate.

But as has been the pattern the last few months, from the admission that the lab leak theory is probable to revisions about the vaccines not stopping the spread of COVID-19, another major shift is taking place. Per CDC Dir. Rochelle Walensky, the government is preparing to release revised COVID death figures that will show those who died from the virus instead of the broader total of those who died with it.
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Yet, I can’t help but notice how politically convenient this is. Literally, just a few days after Joe Biden took the mantle of presiding over the most COVID deaths from Donald Trump, the government suddenly decides now is the time to revise the numbers? Yeah, there’s no way that’s a coincidence. And rest assured, the same media that “fact-checked” any prior questions about the COVID death totals will now pretend like that never happened.

Imagine if the CDC under Trump had moved to compile such data? It would have caused a firestorm of accusations that the government was falsifying the death totals for political gain. Heck, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it led to another impeachment. Yet, the Biden administration moves to do just that and it’s all shrugs.
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It is not a distinction without a difference, but it does appear to be politically motivated in its timing.   Walensky has also pointed out that a significant number of the deaths involved comorbidities that contributed to the deaths.  This is important to know because it probably explains why the vaccine has not been as effective as was originally touted.