Did CDC ‘quietly’ change death toll?

The claim: “CDC just backpedaled (quietly) and adjusted the US Covid deaths from 153,504 to 9,210.” — social media post shared by Republican President Donald Trump.

Trump shared two tweets making similar claims during the weekend after the Republican National Convention.

PolitiFact ruling: Pants on Fire. A report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics found that, for about 6 percent of Americans who die from the virus, COVID-19 is the only condition listed on their death certificates. But that doesn’t mean the remaining 94 percent didn’t die due to the coronavirus.

People with pre-existing conditions, such as cancer or diabetes, have a higher risk of dying if they contract COVID-19. Complications from those conditions, as well as comorbidities such as influenza and pneumonia, can be listed in addition to the coronavirus on death certificates. In 92 percent of death certificates that mention the virus, COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death, according to the NCHS.

Discussion: Twitter removed the first tweet for violating its rules. Another post from Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser for the Trump campaign, linked to a story from the Gateway Pundit, a conservative news site. That tweet was still up as of publication as of Aug. 31.

The tweets misconstrue federal data on COVID-19 victims.

As of Aug. 31, the CDC reported that 182,622 Americans have died since the start of the pandemic — and some estimates put the death toll even higher. The agency said that the vast majority of deaths involving COVID-19 can be attributed to the virus.

Claims that the CDC adjusted its COVID-19 death numbers appear to have originated on Facebook before making their way to Trump’s Twitter feed, according to VineSight, an organization that uses artificial intelligence to surface potential misinformation. Several posts were shared thousands of times.

The posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.

The social media posts trace back to an Aug. 26 update from the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the CDC. The report is updated every Wednesday and outlines provisional death counts for

COVID-19.

In a section titled “Comorbidities,” the NCHS wrote: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”

In medicine, comorbidities are conditions that patients experience in tandem with a primary condition. According to the CDC, people with preexisting conditions like cancer and diabetes are more at risk of death if they contract the coronavirus.

The NCHS report shows that the vast majority of coronavirus-related deaths occur in patients with comorbidities. But that doesn’t mean COVID-19 wasn’t a factor.

“A small number of people have COVID ascribed as the sole cause of death. It may be they

had no comorbidities or they were just not noted,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “However, it is also clear that advanced age and several other underlying diseases lead to bad outcomes with COVID infections. The people dying were not going to die but for the acquisition of COVID.”

In a Facebook post addressing claims about the NCHS report, Dr. Mark Halstead, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery and pediatrics at Washington University, broke down how conditions are listed on a patient’s death certificate.

“So, let’s say someone was admitted to the hospital because of symptoms of COVID. They test positive, so COVID would be listed,” Halstead said in the post. “Their case progressed where they developed respiratory failure and now are on a ventilator. Respiratory failure can be listed.”

Additional conditions may be listed on a patient’s death certificate during the course of their stay in the hospital. For example, if a COVID-19 patient ended up dying from cardiac arrest, that could also be included.

“So now three things are listed on their death certificate,” Halstead wrote. “The COVID infection started the process but that led to the heart and lungs failing, which killed that person.”

Jeff Lancashire, acting associate director for communications at the NCHS, told us in an email that while 94 percent of death certificates that mention COVID-19 also listed other conditions, the underlying cause of death was COVID-19 in almost all of them.

“The underlying cause of death is the condition that began the chain of events that ultimately led to the person’s death,” he said. “In 92 percent of all deaths that mention COVID-19, COVID-19 is listed as the underlying cause of death.”